Of Family And Q
by Anime-Ronin
Summary: What If' Challenge Answer: What if Q had another son ... Xander Harris?
1. Default Chapter

Of Family and Q  
  
Author: Anime Ronin  
  
Rating: PG – 13 for occasional swearing  
  
Summary: What if... Q had two sons. Ok we all know of the son Q had with the other Q in the Star Trek universe. What if he had one with a mortal woman. His name is Xander Harris.  
  
Disclaimer: I own neither BTVS nor Star Trek.  
  
AN: Challenge Answer to Shadowmage7  
  
Timeline: Post S7, but two major changes – Sunnydale never went down with the Hellmouth, as it were (it's still there), and the Hellmouth in Cleveland wasn't open just yet.  
  
And away with the fic!  
  
**Chapter 1**  
  
Alexander Harris was a simple being – he slept, he ate, he was active in something he liked to do, he like to laugh and he got angry, something he currently was in spades at the resident geek, Andrew; said geek had been talking non-stop for the last twenty seven minutes through one of Xander's favorite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation about something that happened before the opening credits and Xander was about two seconds away from committing homicide.  
  
"Andrew, do you like being able to speak and walk on two legs?" This got a look from several of the new Slayers as he was the one who was supposed to be even-tempered.  
  
"Uh, yes, why?"  
  
Xander glared at the geek with his one eye, "Because if you do not shut up right now I am going to remove your capacity to which you can claim to be a bipedal creature and then I'm going to break your jaw into so many pieces nobody will ever be able to put it back together properly. Capice?" Years of being around Willow and Giles had expanded his understand of the English language greatly, even if he rarely showed it.  
  
Apparently Andrew's own grasp of the language, when not involving computers or games, wasn't that great, "Huh?"  
  
"He's gonna rip your legs off, dork," one of the Slayers from in and around New York, named Jessica, chipped in with a savage grin. "And we're going to help him make it look like it was an accident."  
  
One of the youngest Slayers there at only fourteen, Diane from London began to cry crocodile tears and gibber slightly, "B-buffy, we t-tried to stop him, we really did, but he just ... tripped." The Slayers all began to chuckle at Andrew's stricken look, a chuckle in which Xander joined in with but with a slightly darker tone.  
  
"You wouldn't!"  
  
"Maybe they won't," Xander said quietly, menacingly and grinning a grin that befit the Hyena more than 'the goof', "but I would."  
  
"Enough torturing the helpless geek, Xander," Willow's voice came in from the doorway, where she and Kennedy were standing and doing their best not to laugh.  
  
"Sure, spoil our fun," he groused. He then smiled hugely, "So what is in the wacky world of Willow these days, Wills? Magic? Translations? Nude skydiving?"  
  
Kennedy looked slightly speculative at the last suggestion but Willow spoke up, blushing slightly while the Slayers all chuckled, "Nothing much, really. I've been feeling something funny all day and it's only getting stronger."  
  
Xander's good mood evaporated instantly, "Evil?"  
  
"No, just ... powerful."  
  
"Well that's one way of putting it." Everyone turned to look at the television, where John DeLancie's {did I spell his last name right?} character, Q, was standing in his Star Fleet uniform, "Hello, Children."  
  
"Cool! He's talking to us, guys!" Andrew went into full geek mode until a precisely flung and densely stuffed pillow from one of the Slayers caught him in the chest.  
  
"Thank you, young lady." He snapped his fingers and with a flash, disappeared from the television, only to reappear in front of everybody, still in uniform and oozing so much power that many of the Slayer had to do their best to stay conscious, "Greetings, all, I am Q. I mean you no harm, but I must speak to young Alexander here." That said, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers, in which Xander's world was lost in a bright flash of light.  
  
**Chapter 2**  
  
Xander's world came back into focus a second later and before him stood a trio of people, all of whom were dressed in the same Command Star Fleet uniform; one was a female, who looked to be 35 years old on the outside, with light brown/blonde hair and gray eyes along with a slightly upset expression while the other was a young male, human in appearance, with dark hair, dark eyes and wore an expression of pure contempt while Q, on the other hand, wore a smug grin that Xander didn't like at all, "Alright, just where in the hell did you take me and who are they?"  
  
"This is my wife, Q, and my son, Q {alright, for this not to be confusing, the wife will be Q-F and the son will be Q2}. Wife, son, meet Alexander Lavelle Harris, native of Earth circa the early twenty first century in a lovely little hamlet called Sunnydale, which also houses the Hellmouth." Both persons apparently knew what a Hellmouth was because they both winced and Q went on, "Now, I have a bit of news for all three of you to hear and I am sure that none of you will like all of it."  
  
Q took a breath and then let it out, "Alexander Harris is my son by way of a mortal woman I had relations with some time back. You, Alexander, are also Q, and Q2 is your little brother."  
  
There was silence for several minutes afterwards of this proclamation, but that ended when Q-F looked at her husband and glared, "So, there was another woman?"  
  
"And this is my, our, cue to leave, little bro," Xander said hastily, grabbing Q2 by the wrist and dragging him along as Q-F's voice began to raise in volume.  
  
"Unhand me, you inferior brute!" Q2 began to struggle to try and get away from him, but apparently could not and was dragged along for the ride while Q did his best to calm his wife, "LET ME GO!"  
  
"Do you WANT to get caught in the middle of that," Xander pointed at where Q and Q-F were now obscured in a cloud of smoke and energy, "mess?"  
  
Q2 looked for a moment as if he were going to say 'yes', but then common sense began to seep in and he shook his head, "On the other hand, I think you have the right idea."  
  
"Trust me, feuding parents are no kid's friend."  
  
Q2 looked at him oddly, "You seem to be taking dad's confession rather well, all things considered."  
  
Xander snorted, "Please, I've lived on the Hellmouth long enough to know that nothing is too out there. Hell, I think I just won the pool for who had the strangest real father-and-or-mother." He laughed mirthlessly for a second before he sobered up, "Well, at least I'm not Tony Harris' real son, so things can't be all bad."  
  
"Hmm, you are a strange mortal, brother."  
  
"Tell me about it." The battle between Q and Q-F appeared to be over as both individuals walked over, more than a little singed in appearance, but other than that they were fine, "So, is the lover's spat over or do Junior and I here need to wait somewhere else for Round 2 to finish?"  
  
"No, son," Q-F grated out with a glare at her husband before looking back at him. She looked into his one good eye for a moment and then clucked in disapproval, "When will that bitch ever learn?" She snapped her fingers and Xander collapsed to the ground in agony, his head burning for a few seconds before it stopped completely.  
  
Hesitantly he lifted the patch that had covered his missing eye for nearly three months before feeling around and somehow knowing that it was back, which made him open his new eye slowly, "Cool."  
  
"Very," Q said drolly before clapping his hand. "Now, for some answers."  
  
"Yes, husband, they would do nicely right about now. Why is it that you coupled with a mortal and fathered a child without telling me?"  
  
"Because I was young, stupid and didn't know any better, dear," Q said blandly, making Xander wince.  
  
"So I really was an accident, wasn't I? Damnit, I hate it when that bastard is right." Both Q2 and Q-F looked at him oddly but said nothing as he went on, "So, what am I?"  
  
"Human, mostly, but yet you are also Q."  
  
Xander looked at the other two, "Am I the only one that didn't make sense to here?" Both shook their heads, "Good."  
  
Q sighed, "I was human for a time and after I got my powers back I randomly hopped back into Earth's past, met a woman and we copulated after getting to know one another. You are the product of that union and, as such, you have certain fringe benefits from it."  
  
Xander snorted, "I can't find a normal girlfriend, the universe seems to be out to get me and I live on the Hellmouth; THOSE are fringe benefits?"  
  
Q smiled, "Yes, but not all of them - have you ever noticed that you cannot be unwillingly enspelled?"  
  
"Wrong-o, bucko. I was possessed by a Hyena Spirit when I was 15 and a Chaos spell made me into a Vietnam Veteran a little more than a year later."  
  
Q winced, "Well, that blasted Hyena Spirit has always been causing more trouble than he was worth, but I am not sure why a Chaos mage would have been able to enspell you." Q shrugged, "Oh well, it matters not. You are Q now, Alexander, and this is going to be your first test."  
  
"What?" Q-F, Q2 and Xander all said at once, the latter of the three going on, "What kind of test are you talking about?"  
  
"Your little brother needs someone to teach him about human values and, as you have spent your entire life on Earth as a human, you are more than qualified to teach him. Also, you are also Q and need to learn about your new abilities, so he can teach you some of what you need to know by visiting your new Aunt Kathy."  
  
"Aunt Kathy! I love visiting her!" Q2 apparently did like his Aunt Kathy with the way he beamed and his mother frowned, "She and her crew on Voyager are so fun to be around, brother, that you'll never want to come back here." He grabbed Xander's hand and smiled before snapping his fingers, "Away we go!"  
  
{AN: Now, I know that in Voyager, Q and Q2 were bound by some agreement together, but I am going off of that the order has been repealed temporarily. OH, and in this world, Voyager has not been on the air ever.}  
  
"What the ... hell?" Xander looked around at the surrounding room, all of them dressed in variants of the same uniform that Q2 himself wore, only with yellow on some of the shoulders, and one buxom blonde in a catsuit with a metal piece over her left eye and some metal on her hand.  
  
"Hello, Q," came an exasperated voice from the woman with four pips on her collar and red on her shoulders. "What is it this time?"  
  
"Hi, Aunty, this is my brother Alexander from Earth."  
  
Everyone looked at Xander and he sighed, "Q, there is something called subtlety; look into it some time." He straightened his clothes, namely his jeans and a t-shirt, and smiled, "Hi, Alexander Harris of Earth, 2004, but please, call me Xander."  
  
The redhead looked at him oddly, "You're Q's brother?"  
  
"Apparently. Dear old dad had a quick furlough to earth a while back and he met my mom – so I'm sure I don't have to explain what happened beyond that, do I?" A snort from the Asian man behind one terminal and a chuckle from 'Kathy', not to mention a few odd looks and a raised eyebrow from a honest-to-God Vulcan were all the responses he got, "Okay, um, one quick question – where in God's name has he taken me?"  
  
The woman smiled slightly, "I am Captain Katherine Janeway, and welcome to the United Federation of Planets Starship Voyager."  
  
Xander felt himself snap to attention slightly and then salute, "Captain." There was a flash and immediately he felt a difference in his clothing – gone were his jeans, sneakers and t-shirt, but now in their place stood spit-shined black combat boots, forest-style camouflage BDUs, a green beret under his left epaulette and the rank of sergeant on his sleeves. He glared at Q2, "What'd you do to my clothes?"  
  
Q2 held up his hands in surrender, "That wasn't me, brother – that was all you."  
  
Xander sighed, "This is going to take some getting used to."  
  
Aunt Kathy looked at Q2, "My ready room – now."  
  
"So he's new to the Continuum?"  
  
Q2 nodded, "He's technically been Q for less than an hour, Aunt Kathy – grew up on Earth as a human and never knew the truth until dad told him."  
  
Katherine sighed, "What a way to become Q."  
  
Q2 shrugged and looked at his brother, "Where'd you get those clothes, brother?"  
  
"Do you remember what I said about the Chaos Mage?" At Q2's nod, Xander went on, "These are remnants of the memories of the soldier I was turned into that night."  
  
"Excuse me," Katherine asked quickly. "Chaos mage?"  
  
"Magic user who called upon the Roman god Janus to power his spell to infuse those who wore costumes on Halloween bought from his store – whoever you were was whoever you got turned into."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"Anyway, when the spell ended, not all of him went away and trust me, some of his memories I could have done without." Xander shuddered for a second and then looked at Katherine, "Hold on a second – you're his Aunt Kathy, right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Xander gave her a sly smile, "Does that make you my Aunt Kathy too?"  
  
Q2 snickered at that as Katherine gave him a small smile, "At least you don't need your diapers changed. So, Alexander, tell me about yourself."  
  
"No time, Kathy," came Q's voice as he flashed into being sitting on Katherine's desk. "Junior and Xander have a lot to learn about being Human and Q, respectively." He snapped his fingers and with a flash of light, Katherine was the only one in the room.  
  
She put her head down into her hands and moaned, "Oh God, there's three of them."  
  
All three members of the Q Continuum flashed into being again together, but this time back in the Summers home in Sunnydale with everyone still where they were when Q originally took Xander away, "Now, Alexander, your job is to teach Q2 about being human and he is to teach you about being Q – you have all eternity to learn how to be Q, but this is probably the best chance for him to learn about humanity; they are short-lived, violent, sometimes mindless beings who are so very fascinating in their interactions, and with all of the Slayers here, he will be in a prime learning environment."  
  
"Okay, rule One – no peeking in on any female in or around this or any house if you like all of your parts and pieces where they currently are. They'll kill you if they think you're a peeping tom and I'm not sure I'd stop them if you were."  
  
"But you're my brother! You have to stop them."  
  
"Rule Two – Self-preservation is key, so don't let other men drag you down with them if they get into trouble."  
  
Q clapped his hands, "Excellent – he's already learned two of the most important lessons there are to being both human and male. Now, Alexander, teach him well, and I'll be back in one month to check in on your progress." With a snap of his fingers, Q left and time resumed ... as did the chaos of Xander's sudden departure.  
  
AN: There will some generalities about humans and our behavior in the next chapter – don't take offense, but many of them are true. Yes, there will be Andrew Bashing from here on out, maybe a little Buffy Bashing (hair color only), oh, and did I mention a lot of Andrew Bashing (sometimes physical and with Slayer strength).  
  
AN2: Don't worry, Xander will return with Q2 to Voyager later on in the fic.  
  
**Chapter 3**  
  
"So let me get this straight – you're now an all-powerful, omnipotent being from the Q Continuum, he is temporarily powerless to teach him about humanity and we're supposed to deal with it?" Buffy wiggled her hand in front of his face, "HELLO! Anybody home?"  
  
Xander looked at Q2, "While sometimes humans can be overly smart, most of the times those who bleach their hair blonde can be overly annoying with their supposed superiority." Q2 nodded at this sage-like advice and Xander turned back to the now-fuming bottle blonde, "Yes, I am here, Buffy, but you haven't said anything about my newest returned feature yet."  
  
"Yes, I said your uniform looks nice, but let's –"  
  
"He's talking about his eye, Buffy," Dawn said to the bottle blonde. "DUH!"  
  
Buffy looked up and saw that, indeed, her Xander-shaped friend had two eyes. "Oh."  
  
Xander looked at Q2 again, "Humans also often miss that which is obvious and right in front of their eyes." Looking back, he smiled, "Yes, you got the gist of it, Buff – for a month he is human and will be learning how to deal with us, meaning he will have to resist the urge to not murder the lot of us because we can be bloody-well annoying most of the time." He stopped and thought back over the sentence he'd just said and then paled, "Oh God, I just spoke British!"  
  
The assembled Slayers, save Buffy, who was still fuming, took that point to chuckle – it was general consensus that Xander was the fun guy to be around, but now that he was back, with two eyes, dressed in forest BDUs and with the green beret still there, many of the Slayers seemed to be paying more attention to him with Dawn and Faith leading the way {No, Dawn isn't a Slayer, but her crush is still there}.  
  
"Be that as it may, Xander," Giles went on in his smooth tone, still smirking at his infection of the British English Language on an American, "What is it that you can do, in broad terms?"  
  
"He can change anything he want to whatever he wants, Mister Giles – what good is being omnipotent if one is not also all-powerful?" Q2 smirked, but then frowned, "But until he figures out how to control his powers Dad will probably make it to where he can't do too much more than he already has and most of it will be for himself."  
  
The entire group seemed to deflate at this, as if hoping that he would be able to destroy all of the demons for them, but that was something that, even if he were capable of it, he would not do – Humanity needed to learn to stand on their own feet and take the challenges that came their way (plus the whole unbalancing thing would probably piss a lot of people off in Heaven and Hell, regardless of the fact that he was Q now).  
  
It was Dawn who spoke up next and Xander could hear the trepidation in her voice, "So you're here for another month?"  
  
"Yep, then I'm off to learn the family business, as it were, but if I am thinking of this the right way, you'll never know I was gone because I'll be in another time and, as such, if I do return the only time that will have passed will have been for me," he looked at Q2, "right?"  
  
"Temporal Law of Q – time passes only as much, as fast or as little as you allow it to." Q2 shrugged, "To them you may be gone for a second, a minute or a year – when you come back you adjust for that and move on from there."  
  
"Alrighty then," Xander said, rubbing his hands together and then snapping his fingers, changing out of his uniform and into his old jeans and a t- shirt, noticing that the more the did it, the easier it was to do things with his new powers. "Rules of Humanity, little brother; take notes and remember that when dealing with humans, common sense is not a requirement."  
  
AN: I'll end this chapter; in the next we'll see how Q2 has changed. I know that Xander seems to be taking to being a Q like a duck takes to a pond, but know that it's going to get harder from here on out with everyone, Andrew especially, wanting him to pull the genie bit and grant wishes. He and the others will soon find out just how difficult it truly is to be a member of the Continuum.  
  
**Chapter 4  
**  
As was with any type of withdrawal, the first week is always the worst; by the end of day one Q2, now called Butch instead of Quentin (nobody from the OSG -original Scooby gang- wanted to be reminded of Quentin Travers any more than they had to be), was snapping his fingers to make things happen spontaneously while Xander wasn't snapping them at all – he merely had to think about it and learned that Q snapped their fingers as kind of a triggering mechanism. By the end of day two, while the education of what it meant to be human covered hunger, sleeping, washing, shaving, etc., Butch was learning what fools mortals were while doing his best not strangle Andrew with anything that was handy, even a Slayer who was more than willing to do the job for Butch.  
  
First lesson was The Code of Men, taught by Xander, Giles and, when he deemed it important enough to ever show up, Robin; it covered the do's and don'ts of what it was to be a human male – Giles even got him a revised copy from the local distributor {AN: No Comments made about this other than a friend suggested this}. Lessons to follow were basic common sense when dealing with Humans, but as Xander has pointed out to Butch on his first day as a human, common sense only occasionally factored in with dealing with humans of the 21st century  
  
Days three and four were hard learning experiences for Butch; he learned that in a house full mystically-enhanced Vampire Slayers who happened to be teenaged girls, being a male meant that you were immediately at a minority and even if you were liked, that meant getting in and out of the bathroom, on and off the phone, everything done in as little time as possible – it was at this point, though, that Butch learned the values of threats to humans when Andrew's incessant questions pushed the still-currently senior Q present over the edge to the point he buried a steak knife into the wall next to the young man's head. Had it not been for Butch's towering fury towards Andrew, it would have been funny.  
  
Days five through seven were tougher than most – Butch had gotten down the basics of sanitation, eating and most of the human norms, but he had yet to grasp the finer points of subtlety and tact, which reminded Xander all too keenly of Anya under the best of circumstances. Against his better judgment he had pulled the temporary human out of several sticky spots with the new Slayers and did his best to avoid being caught in the crossfire when Butch accidentally, though it could be questioned just how accidental it was at the time, walked into the bathroom and a Slayer from Hong Kong al natural, which got Butch clocked but good.  
  
All of this was not to say that it had been easy for Xander; it started slowly at first with one or two of the Slayers, generally Jessica or Kennedy, wanted a little something to eat and it ended up him providing a seven course meal for all present. He'd lost his temper several times and told all present that he wasn't a walking buffet provider, nor was he a dispenser of clothing, cosmetics or cash – but thankfully the word had spread not to piss him off after he accidentally turned Kennedy into a human-sized Smurf {AN: I know this has been used in several stories except it was Willow who was 'smurffed', but I like the concept, so whoever thought of it, cuddos.}. The fact was that the one person who had not asked him for anything was the one person who had yet to say more than three words to him since she got back into Sunnydale – Faith. She and Robin had a fling, but that soon petered out and she had settled down, a lot, since defeating the First Evil and closing the Hellmouth – Xander sometimes found himself on the roof for some reason or another and she'd join him; neither would say a damned word because they didn't need to.  
  
It was the almost sundown of the seventh evening, once again on the roof while Butch did his best to learn how to interact with humans, when she found him on the roof and spoke, "I'm sorry, Xander."  
  
He didn't need to read her mind, a neat trick he'd picked up in the previous few days yet shied away from because of the whole invasion of privacy thing, to know what she was talking about, "You weren't the first to try and kill me, Faith, and not the last – forgiven and forgotten."  
  
She sat on his right, dressed in her now-habitual jeans and jacket with what appeared to be a tank top underneath, "Bet you say that to all the girls."  
  
He smiled and took a pull off of his open soda, "Nope – you're the first; they're mostly all dead and Willow still hasn't really apologized for nearly killing me {AN: She may have, but I'm saying no} two years ago." He absently willed a soda into existence for her with a stray thought and lay back until his back was on the roof, "So is that all you're up here for?"  
  
She joined him, "What's it like, being all-powerful and omnipotent? Must be a killer high."  
  
"Sometimes, yes, but 99.9% of the time it's terrifying, Faith; I could kill someone with a thought, and I have to be on guard 24/7 so I don't. I sorta know what it's like to be a Slayer now, all hopped up on power and having to restrain myself."  
  
She chuckled next to him, looking over, "So what are you gonna do once you finish your training? Come back here and be Super Xander? Save us all from the demons and let us live out our lives peacefully?"  
  
He sighed, "Wish I could do that, but I can't; that'd destroy the balance between the light and dark, so I'd probably just be Xander, living somewhere with myself and anyone who could stand me."  
  
She smiled, "Is that an invite?"  
  
"Door's open as long as you have a pulse." He thought he was kidding himself at first, but he then felt her hand on top of his and squeezing slightly, which he returned as they sat in comfortable silence until, naturally, it was disturbed by a scream and a howled curse.  
  
**Chapter 5  
**  
Before Faith could get out habitual, "WTF," Xander had teleported them down to the front room, where the scream and howled curse originated from and took in the situation; Andrew was on the ground in the fetal position, the girls were all looking at Butch, who was snarling curses and clutching his right hand, Giles was cringing and then it clicked that it was he who had howled the curse, "What the hell happened here?" Everyone started to speak at once but it sounded like seven different stories at once, so he held up his hands and looked at Butch, who appeared to be calming down, "Well?"  
  
"That ... that idiot wouldn't leave me alone even after I told him to stop, so I kicked him."  
  
"In the 'crown jewels', ye wanker! Ye don't EVER do that to another bloke, ponce or not!" Giles looked incredulous and had let the Ripper slip for several seconds before getting back into control, "It's incredibly bad form."  
  
Xander closed his eyes and counted to ten, taking deep breaths, and then looked down at Andrew, "Alright, that's quite enough of that; let your worst nightmares become reality!" He snapped his fingers and Andrew instantly changed from rolling-on-the-floor-from-being-racked geek to an impeccably dressed young man who appeared to be the poster boy for the young Republicans.  
  
"Forgive me, but I must go preach the word of GWB to the masses so he may be re-elected," the new Andrew said in an educated voice before leaving the house for the downtown area of Sunnydale.  
  
The group was silent for a moment before Faith looked over at Xander, "That was cruel."  
  
"No, that was fun – cruel would have been to turn him into an unimaginative hick who preferred sheep and goats to human beings." He looked over at Butch, who was smiling, "What're you smiling about?"  
  
"Father would be so proud of you, Alexander. That was truly inspired."  
  
Xander grinned evilly, "No, that was my overactive imagination at work – THIS is both inspired and cruel." He snapped his fingers and both he and Butch were suddenly in the basement, the latter of the pair strapped into a chair with a straight jacket, eyes peeled open, and looking at a television set while it turned on and came to rest on Public Television.  
  
For a second there was no words spoken, but then Butch began to struggle, "NO, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! NOT BARNEY! ARGH, THE HUMANITY! PLEASE, I SWEAR I'LL BE GOOD!"  
  
Xander ignored his cries of terror and flashed back up to the front room, where everyone could hear the muffled screams from below, "I wouldn't go down in the basement if I were any of you, unless you like Barney."  
  
Everyone winced and shuddered at that, Giles speaking up almost timidly, "Does he deserve that, Xander?"  
  
"Possibly not, but he needs to learn what true terror is and that's the best way to learn – fear is something that must be faced and it is what often keeps humans alive."  
  
Word spread quickly among the Slayers that Xander had taken a turn for the sadistic and everyone stayed well away from the basement, even if when they passed by they heard pitiful whimpers and the occasional, "DIE YOU PURPLE FREAK!" For her part, Buffy had gotten a good chuckle out of it until she saw what Xander had done to Andrew, who had tried to convert a small group of young Slayers into Republicans, then she too avoided the Scooby/Q while muttering, "Sheesh, what sent him off the deep end?"  
  
When midnight came, though, Xander let Butch out of his restraints and out of the basement, but not out of the house, as he was sitting in any available dark corner, rocking himself and whispering, "nomorepurpledinosaur, nomorepurpledinosaur," over and over again. Andrew, for his part, avoided both Xander and Butch, having almost converted three Slayers to the Republican Party until Willow banished him from the house, telling him to go convert some vampires. {No, I don't like Andrew, but he won't be killed}  
  
Xander returned to the roof and sat, waiting for sunrise because, as Q, he didn't need to sleep; he was joined by the odd Slayer, even Dawn for a few minutes, but as the sun came up on day eight, he smiled and muttered to himself, "Now, for teleportation practice."  
  
{AN: Yes, Barney is an effective tool for torture, but the Supreme Court also made him a whipping boy when a MLB team had their mascot beat someone in a Barney costume with a foam bat – the creators of Barney said that was a breech of copyright but the SC said that it was freedom of expression, hence the Barney-bashing began.}  
  
**Chapter 8**: Flight Plans? Who needs them when you fly Air Q?  
  
{AN: there will be crossovers galore and resolved feelings in this part, so try and keep up. Now, please place you tray tables and seats in the upright position, we are taking off on Air Q – thank you for flying.}  
  
Xander had been busy that morning – first on the list was learning from Butch how to manipulate the bodies of other people, which he had done by knocking about twenty years off of Giles' age (25 – 30 years old for a while), but then learned how to manipulate reality and matter by conjuring up a full Pardon signed by the Last Action Hero himself, a full file on the guy known as Soldier Boy, but his crowning achievement was then done when he created a new refrigerator that, when emptied, filled up again after about five minutes. Several of the Slayers and a certain red-haired best friend/Wicca/Lesbian had proposed to him on the spot, while numerous others, including a mystical ball of Key energy, made an offering to him of the option of fathering their first, second and even third born children. It took all of his willpower to say no to all of them, but Butch reminded him at that point that it was time for his teleportation and time manipulation classes.  
  
Xander looked at Butch, who took only a few minutes to explain the entire process, even as several Slayers gathered around for the big moment, "So, that's all there is to it? Picture where I want to be and, poof, there I am?"  
  
"Yes," Butch said. "You've done it on pure instinct several times already, but this time you have to picture a place or dimension where you want to go and do it – remember to aim for dry land, because when you appear over water you go right in with no time to teleport anywhere else."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind, little brother." Picturing a woman's face in his mind, Xander felt himself being ripped across dimensions to the realm that was often considered Heaven; it wasn't all that different from Earth, really, but it was the little things like clean air, pleasant weather and plenty of green plants that made it ... perfect.  
  
"Xander?" He turned around to look at the speaker of his name and did his best not to choke up with tears when he saw her.  
  
"Joyce." He walked up to her and embraced the woman he had wanted to be his true mother for years, "It's good to see you again, mom."  
  
She hugged him back, "You too, son." They parted after a minute and she looked him up and down, "So, I guess you have finally come into your birthright then?"  
  
He smiled, "You knew?"  
  
She smiled, "Once it was explained to me, yes. There is actually quite a pool going up here on just whom you are going to end up with for the rest of eternity – Dawn and Faith are in front, with Vi and several other new Slayers in marginal positions, but oddly enough Buffy is in dead last." She shrugged at that and then grinned impishly, "Of course both Jenny and I are tied for fourth, if we are ever allowed to go back."  
  
He chuckled, "Who's in third place?"  
  
"I-I am, Xander." He turned to see Tara, dressed in a flowing skirt and a matching blouse, still as beautiful as ever.  
  
"Tara." He hugged her gently, remembering his want of vengeance against Warren Meers for killing her.  
  
"Don't, Xander." He pulled back and saw her face had a wan look to it, "He's being punished enough as it is."  
  
Xander felt his face darken, "No punishment would EVER be enough for that ... person." It took several seconds for him to regain his composure but it happened and he looked her up and down, "You look good, Tara-bear."  
  
She blushed and Joyce giggled, "I never should have told you my nickname." They all shared a laugh and for a moment there was silence, then Tara spoke again, "Thank you for what you did for Willow, Xander. Had you not been destined for something more, your place up here would have been cemented, regardless of what you would have done from then on."  
  
"It had to be done, Tara, and I was the one saddled with it; besides, if you saw that you knew what I was going to do if I couldn't stop her with words ... all of it." He'd brought a gun with him that day for two reasons – if he couldn't talk Willow down he would have shot her, and then himself because a world with Willow wasn't one he wanted to live in.  
  
"We know all, Xander. Now, you have a lot more places to visit, so get going, but come back and visit us some time soon, son." Joyce kissed him on one cheek and then Tara kissed him on the other.  
  
"I shall return." That done, he pictured his next place and willed himself there; it wasn't often that people wanted to go to Hell, but to see that bastard suffer, Xander was willing to put up with a little extra heat.  
  
Xander wasn't too surprised to see Warren being flogged by each and every demon that came around, but what he was surprised to hear, from 'Louis Cypher' off all 'people', was that even the demons in Hell had liked Tara and her killer had been reserved a special place.  
  
Curiosity satisfied, Xander then willed himself to do something he had not had a chance to do in nearly four years – Annoy Deadboy; he popped in on the souled vampire and wasn't surprised to find him brooding at his desk in the Executive Office of Wolfram and Hart, "Hiya, DB."  
  
Angel jumped in his seat and turned, looking at Xander for a moment before sighing, "Great, you're here to torture me now too. Wasn't Spike enough?"  
  
"There's never enough annoying you, Deadboy," Xander said glibly as the door opened and several people walked in, but only two of them Xander recognized. "Harmony? Spike?" He looked at Angel is something that approached, but not quite reached, sympathy, "Sorry, man. Didn't think you had it this bad."  
  
"Whelp?" "Harris?" Spike and Harmony spoke as one, while the others looked on blankly.  
  
"In the Q flesh, as it were." He teleported forwards and, on general principle, decked Spike for all the trouble he had caused in the past and would continue to cause in the future. "God I have wanted to do that for years now."  
  
"How did you do that? I mean, teleportation is supposed to be magical, but magic is used with incantations and scrolls and potions, but you said nothing..." {Three guesses whom this is.}.  
  
"Fringe benefit of the job, ma'am." He looked back at the bewildered Angel and smiled wickedly, "Don't you hate it when an annoying Zeppo like me becomes a cosmic being of unlimited power and true omnipotence? Adios!" Picking a place randomly, he teleported before anyone could say anything.  
  
When he arrived he was greeted with perhaps the second most amazing sight he had ever witnessed - a natural blonde in the shower.  
  
"AH!" The scream shook him out of his reverie and he screamed in response, teleporting as the name was finally placed – Kate Lockley. {AN: Sorry, I had to throw her in for some reason, but I know the actress who plays here isn't natural – but one could always dream. Besides, he left quickly, didn't he? Add to that, he teleported randomly!}  
  
"Freeze!" Xander froze at the barked order from someone, from the voice a female someone, behind him. "Hands in the air and turn around slowly!"  
  
He complied and saw that the person giving him orders had a gun drawn on him, so he instinctively teleported it into his hands without much fuss, "Now, are you quite finished?"  
  
"Who are you?" {P–)}The woman in question was Catherine Willows, from the television show CSI, and she did not look happy.  
  
Xander, who had seen the show, flipped on the radio next to him and The Who came on with the appropriate song, "Call me Q, my dear Ms. Willows. I, uh, missed my target landing zone, sorry. If you can't tell, I am still kinda new at this. Bye!" He smiled and teleported himself away, her gun reappearing in her holster as Gil Grissom entered the room, gun drawn.  
  
"Who was in here, Catherine?"  
  
She shook her head, "He said his name was Q."  
  
Xander had fun in New York City from the Marvel comics Universe (Marvel- verse) when he traded quips with Spiderman while rounding up several thugs and even dropped in on the Black Cat as she kicked the backside of another group of thugs who had tried to divest her of some loot she had ... procured ... from a local blood diamond runner. He visited the group from Cheers in Boston, dropped in on Harry Potter while he, Ron and Hermione were studying in the Library, sipped wine in Paris, met briefly with an ailing Pontiff in Vatican City, visited various places in Russia, India, China, even saw that lunatic Croc Hunter in Australia before popping into Japan, where he was almost mauled by a cat-rabbit for landing on it's carrot. His next stop was his Africa, where he appeared before a small pack of hyenas, which made him cackle insanely for several seconds, which they joined in on, before zapping himself further east and into Maui, where he enjoyed some Luau Pig and even got a hula lesson and a grass skirt before teleporting back to Sunnydale, where nobody had appeared to have moved.  
  
"Hi!" The two nearest Slayers screeched in shock as he landed behind them and jumped several feet in the air before landing on their feet, glaring at him for a second before his mishmash of clothes hit home – he still had on a lei, the grass skirt, a Red Sox cap signed by the entire team, odds and ends from Russia, India, China and even a pair of shorts that mirrored the Croc Hunter's. They all began to giggle incessantly and even Butch snickered at the ... eclectic clothing he was wearing.  
  
He snapped his fingers and the clothes were replaced by his normal attire, the Sox cap still present on his head as Faith's birthday was a few days away, and he smirked at them before setting down an apology not to a particular blonde, "Dear Miss Lockley, sorry about dropping in on you like that, but it was an accident, really. If you want someone to blame, ask Angel, remember him (?), and he'll point you in the right direction. Signed, Alex Harris. PS. DAMN! Hollywood needs more natural blondes as beautiful as you. AH." With that done, he zapped it to her and set about to find Faith to give her an early birthday present.  
  
AN: I know this may get some people's boxers in a bunch, but yes, we do need more real blondes in Hollywood. Sadly, though, brown hair and eyes are predominant in America. Thanx for not flaming me; AR.  
  
AN2: I know it seems that Xander is being a bit free / willy-nilly with his powers, but he's also thinking ahead and giving away gifts for when he does leave – it will be a long time for him before he sees any of them again.  
  
**Chapter 7**  
  
A week later Xander found himself along side of Faith in Boston at a Red Sox/Yankees game; they had not been playing on her birthday two days before, so he had made it up to her by bringing her back home at the crack of dawn for White Castle burgers/sliders, a baseball game with her favorite team against a hated rival, and generally a day off. They had been getting closer than ever over the past few days, Xander not really trying to do anything more than just being himself, which was a laugh because he was a cosmic being of unlimited power/potential, and somehow they had just been spending more and more of their time together while Andrew spread the word of GWB and Butch did his best to fit in with the others in the house.  
  
"SOX WIN! SOX WIN!" The stadium went, to put it nicely, ape shit and Faith was probably the loudest as the Yankees popped out in the ninth down six to four. Xander could have cared less normally, but Faith was having fun, so he tolerated all the suspicious looks she had given him when her team had pulled rabbits out of their collective ass in the form of miracle plays. It was at times like this, when she acted like a carefree young woman, that she looked to be at her most relaxed and Xander felt happy that she was happy.  
  
After the game she had wanted to go see the Big Dig; from what Xander had heard and knew, it was a solution to alleviate Boston's automotive congestion, but it seemed as if it would never be finished. They found a nice little park not too far away and she looked over at him, "Thanks for the trip home, boy toy."  
  
"Not a problem, Faith. It's your birthday and you deserve the very best."  
  
She looked oddly at him, "You didn't rig the game, right? My boys won on their own?"  
  
"Well, today was going to be rained out, so I made a small change in the weather. No big."  
  
"Getting a little free with those powers, aren't ya boy toy? I mean, isn't this what happened with Red a year ago?"  
  
"Yes and no, Faith." He leaned back and took off his jacket, "If you haven't noticed, it's only the small things I use my powers on unconsciously – I still read the paper, walk up to the store, fix things by hand when they are broken, even cook when I feel like it. It helps balance things out and keep me anchored."  
  
"And what about those homeless guys we passed on our way here? It was kinda crazy how you passed 'em all a few coins but then their cups and tins all filled up with some mad cash."  
  
"What's a little charity between friends and neighbors?"  
  
She snorted and reached into her jacket for a smoke, putting it to her lips and going to light it when it flashed and turned into a stick of gum, "Quit doin' that, Xander. I need my nic fix."  
  
He impulsively reached over and put a hand on her forehead, cleansing the toxins and addiction/craving nodes in her brain, "No, you don't Faith. I may still be second banana on this planet as far as skills go, but I want you to live a long, healthy life and lung cancer can be pretty rough."  
  
She growled at him for a second before smiling, "Stop changing the subject, boy toy. You act like you're friggin' Santa Clause and the big JC all rolled into one with the ways you help everyone out."  
  
"Not everyone, Faith. I only help those who truly need help, like that girl on the way to the ballpark today – she had a week, maybe two, to live from the AIDS in her system; she was born like that from her junky mother, so I took care of it. Is wanting to help those who can't be helped a crime, Faith?"  
  
"It's not that, X, it just ain't natural. How's she going to explain it at the clinic when they check her out? Or how about that G's twenty years younger today than he was a month ago?"  
  
He shrugged, "Okay, so I went a little overboard with Giles, but I was still learning; as for the girl, she wasn't going to a clinic and was actually thinking about suicide before I intervened – one thing with my powers is that I can stop time and not even a Slayer can feel it. She and I talked for over an hour about what I'd done to her and she's on her way now to an employment office to get real work and off her back." He looked over at Faith and she was floored, "What, didn't I tell you that as Q, all things are possible?"  
  
She shook her head as if to clear it, "Damn, X, you've got more tricks than a cereal box." She was quiet for a moment and he enjoyed it before she spoke again, but this time her voice was quiet, almost scared, "What if I asked you not to leave, X? I like that we're connecting like this, and I want see if maybe..."  
  
He nodded and then chuckled, "So would I, Faith, but I need to learn to use my powers, to control them properly so I don't accidentally kill everyone while trying to save a cat out of a tree one day. But when I get back it will seem as if very little, if any, time has gone by." He slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, feeling her shake ever so slightly before she turned into him and hugged him for all she was worth.  
  
They stayed like that for several minutes until Faith got herself back under control, which is when the Dig's whistle went off, signaling that it was quitting time for one shift, "Now, for dinner." He stood them up and snapped his fingers, changing their clothes. He himself went for a nice suit of dark gray/charcoal with a matching shirt and tie while he transformed Faith's clothes into an evening gown of red that left her shoulders bare, her hair done up nicely and only a hint of makeup on her face (he'd spent the past week with the other Slayers and every girl's magazine he could conjure to figure out just what she would look good in – though he was convinced she could make a brown paper sack look good.)  
  
She looked down at the dress she was now wearing and then at him, "Where are we going? The Club closed down a few years back and..."  
  
"Paris, actually." He snapped his fingers and instantly they were in a small park from where you were less than a thousand feet from the Eiffel Tower, "When only the very best will do, Faith." He smiled and took her arm, leading her to a nice restaurant not five minutes away and asked for his reservations under 'Harris', and they were led to a table right away.  
  
They ordered and ate, chatting about this and that while Faith soaked in all of the ambiance of the restaurant, generally having a blast while they ate; it all culminated when the head chef brought out a small cake with a single candle on top of it, {next shall be translated into English from French}. "Madam, the young man here asked us to make you a special cake for your special day. Happy birthday and we hope you have many more to come."  
  
Faith, for her part, did her best not to promptly break into tears – it had been a long time, Xander knew, since someone had given a damn about her birthday, and she thanked the chef and Xander with a radiant smile before blowing out the candle on the cake.  
  
"So what'd ya wish for, Faith? Fame? Money? A never-ending supply of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in a gallon tub?" He did have to guess what her wish was – she had been projecting it all night.  
  
She smiled somewhat coyly, "Can't tell ya, boy toy, or it won't come true."  
  
After dinner they danced for several hours in a small dance hall near the restaurant until Faith yawned and he then zapped them back to the Summers' kitchen back in Sunnydale, where the sun was just starting to sink below the horizon, "I've had a blast tonight, X. Thanks."  
  
"No problem, Faith." Actually there was a problem – Xander almost had to physically restrain himself to not kiss her as she moved closer to him to do just that. They were less than an inch apart when the door to the kitchen flew open and two forms stumbled in, causing Faith to back up suddenly and drop into a combat stance while Xander himself swore fluently in Klingon internally when he saw who the two people were – Butch and the Slayer from Hong Kong, Ming Tai (or Tai-chan for short). After he had explained what had happened with the accident to Tai-chan, Butch and she had been getting along very well in the past week and it now appeared that they were jumping several levels of friendship and checking to see if the other still had their tonsils.  
  
Both figures stopped kissing and looked up from the floor at the two standing figures above them; Faith, for her part, looked about to laugh her ass off, but both could tell that Xander was contemplating scattering their atoms to the winds even as Faith dissolved into giggles.  
  
Butch could only smile, though, "Hey brother, what's up?"  
  
AN: okay, this one was overly sappy for the most part, but I needed to get several things out of my system before the next chapter – the 'goodbye to Sunnydale for a while' chapter. R&R, please. AR.  
  
AN: Alright, I want to answer a question – Voyager is not on television in this uni because, well, I said so and it worked better with the story; we don't want to turn X into Andrew, do we? I know, by doing this I have deprived many of Jeri Ryan in a cat suit, sorry.  
  
**Chapter 8**  
  
It had been twelve days since the almost-kiss between Faith and Xander, which meant that there were two days to go before Q would return Butch's powers and take Xander away to train him in the more complex uses of his powers; basically, Xander was frustrated and mightily pissed off that his luck was holding true to form – just as soon as he gets close to someone, luck, fate and Murphy all combine forces to screw it up.  
  
Faith, for her part, had balled out both Ming-Tai and Butch for interrupting both her and Xander; the junior Hong Kong Slayer was profoundly sorry for interrupting 'smoochies' but Butch had snarked left, right and center about them kissing in secret (he and Tai-chan were common knowledge in the house) until Xander came in with a straight jacket, a stack of Barney tapes and duct tape – this shut up the temporary human immediately.  
  
Later that day, when Xander was in better humor, Butch approached him, "Do we have to leave, brother? I like it here – it's ... different ... from anything else I've ever known."  
  
"You already know the answer to that, Butch. We have to go back and finish our training – you already have a huge jump start on me and will probably be done several hundred million years before I am."  
  
Butch sat next to him on the pitch roof, "But I don't want to leave Ming Tai! I can't explain it, brother; every time she walks into the room I feel..."  
  
"Like your heart is going to explode in joy? Like nothing and nobody else in the room or on the world exists at that point?"  
  
Butch looked at him in surprise, "Yes! That's it."  
  
Xander smiled, "It's called love, Butch, and the reason you can't explain it is because for over ten thousand years humans have tried to and have not. Sure, the science of it is easy – chemical reactions in the brain and pheromone release/absorption increase when someone pleasing to the eye and to the individual is observed, adrenaline output is increased, repertory and pulmonary functions fluctuate, your body pores alter the release of pheromones and sweat and few other factors, but science has yet to explain just why someone falls in love with someone else just by sight alone."  
  
"So I can stay and maybe find this out?"  
  
"No."  
  
Butch stood up suddenly, an angry expression on his face, "I am not leaving her and that is final." He stormed off the roof and into the house, not catching Xander's next words.  
  
"Believe it or not, little brother, I am in the same boat."  
  
About ten minutes later Xander found Ming Tai in the back yard doing what appeared to be Tai Chi, "Morning, Tai-chan."  
  
She looked at him and nodded her head; she spoke very little English to begin with, so most of the time it was either Butch or himself that translated her native Chinese for the other.  
  
"We need to talk." These words and the steel behind them made her stop of meditative movements and look at him expectantly, "I want to know, with no hedging or bullshit, that even knowing what my little brother is, what WE are, how you feel about him."  
  
"I love him." It was scary that being born half a world away, never having met him, she spoke just like Oz.  
  
"Why? Why do you love someone who, in the blink of his eye, outlives you and then moves on?"  
  
She shrugged in a very Kwai Chang Caine way, "Who are we to question the wills of the Ancients? They have dictated to my heart that I am to love him, even if our initial meeting was less than stellar." She blushed as she remembered when Butch had accidentally walked in on her as she was crawling out of the shower. "He is my soul mate."  
  
Xander sighed, "Very well, Tai-chan. I thank you for your honesty and that you actually listen to what you ancestors have to say instead of bleaching it out of your head with your hair." How bowed to her and left, allowing her to return to her Tai Chi.  
  
With one full day before Q's return, Xander cornered Butch in one of the upper rooms (which he later placed as Joyce's old room) and spoke plainly, "Look, before you and Tai can EVER be together, you have to finish your studies as a Q – like it or not we are eternal beings and I know for a fact that even though we can manipulate time and space, feelings do change over time; accept it and move on."  
  
"But-"  
  
"I'm not finished, Q." This shut Butch up immediately – Xander had never used Q's real name, ever, "I know the very thought of leaving her hurts – trust me, I'm in the same boat, but one of the hardest lessons for a human to learn is that love is pain. Life, love and humanity all hurt at times, but they are what make being human worth it – if I teach you nothing else about being one of us, learn this." Xander turned away from Butch, who was doing a credible impersonation of a fish at that point, and walked out of the room, "And one day you might even be willing to accept it."  
  
It was time to leave – his father stood before him and had restored the powers of his little brother; Buffy and Dawn were raging about his leaving, Willow was weeping and he could feel Faith up in her room, sobbing even as he did his best not to teleport up there and console her. Eventually he knew he'd have to leave, so he phased himself and Q2 out of time as Q2 let Ming-Tai out of an embrace, "Let this be one of my last lessons to you on Humanity, Q2, and it's the one that is the hardest to learn and accept – how to say goodbye to the ones that you love." Neither Q nor Q2 said anything as tears began to course down Xander's face, "They are my friends, my family in all ways but blood, and I know this is for the best, but I'd rather shove a knife into my own heart than to hurt them like this. What I know, however, is that they will move on with their lives and eventually forget us, I will never forget them, which is what will sustain me until I can come back and be with them ... with her again."  
  
"Well spoken, my son," Q said to Xander. "Jean-Luc would be crying his eyes out had he heard such a profession of emotion."  
  
"English?"  
  
"French."  
  
"Ah."  
  
Q2 looked at his father and brother during the exchange and came up with one conclusion – grownups were weird.  
  
"Regardless, Alexander, your training will consist of two parts – first, I am pleased to see just how much you have learned on your own and from Q2 here, as well as your restraint in using your powers, but now a new education is needed for you to fully come to grasps with what you will be dealing with in our relative time. I have, with permission from the Elders, enrolled you in Starfleet Academy, as Alexander Q. Harris and you will be learning from and being mentored by Admiral Katherine Janeway."  
  
AN: Okay, that's it for this chapter – Xander in Starfleet is not a new concept (Siege has used it before) but instead of finding/training Slayers, he'll be learning about how the world and universe works on a new level. Before you can make use of everything around you, you must first know what everything around you is. Also, I have decided that, yes, this will eventually be a X/F story, but in the coming chapters he will have close friendships with several females (and yes, one will be a former Borg drone – friendship only, though.) I'll get the next part of ths out when I can. AR. 


	2. Part 2 chapters 1 3

Of Family And Q 2: Back to School

_**Author: Anime Ronin **_

_**Rating: PG-13 to R for swearing and situations.**_

_**Disclaimer: I own either BTVS or Star Trek, but I do own several new characters that I will be introducing to keep X sane in his new 'school'.**_

_**Summary: Bombshells are dropped and Alexander Q. Harris returns to school … only of a different sort.**_

_**Pairings: X/F (eventually), X/Wendy/B'eth friendship, X/7 friendship**_

_**Feedback: As it is said, it is the coin of the realm.**_

_**AN: Continuation of 'Of Family And Q', where Xander's true parentage is revealed. He will be pulling 'Butch' for this entire story except for in true 'oh s&t' instances, but for the record, this story will cover about four years in leaps and bounds.**_

_**AN2: Cast of New Characters – Wendy Michaels – Allyson Hannigan, B'eth De'lan – Eliza Dushku, Richard Maxwell – Matt Damon. Others will be added as needed.**_

_**AN3: I know that setting up a new planet and altering history may seem like a good idea, but when you make up something like a war-torn planet, there will be consequences – this will in fact be a test for Xander by his father to see how well he thinks on his feet, so no questions, please.**_

**Chapter 1**

"Let me make sure I have this absolutely clear, dad," Alexander 'Xander' Harris said to the cosmic being known as Q, of the Q Continuum, even as his body began to regress to a younger state. "I am going to be joining Starfleet under an assumed name, sans powers, just so that I can get a unique view of just how the universe works?"

"Basically? Yes."

"And I get to bring only a few things with that are supposed to be from a planet that, before ten seconds ago, didn't exist … ever?"

"Yes."

Xander sighed, even as he flashed his clothes and belongings next to him inside of a Q-like duffle bag that had infinite storage capacity, then flashed the clothes he was wearing into the military BDUs that Soldier Boy felt comfortable in, only there was no rank on them and they were all black (the beret was also black, with the sigil of the United States Special Forces Command on it stating 'De Oppresso Liber', 'to free the oppressed', tucked under his left shoulder seam). "Why do I get the feeling that this is all going to blow up into our faces?"

"Because you are a cynic from past associations with the Hellmouth, son. Besides, your Aunt Kathy won't even know you are there unless you tell her, so she won't be able to call you on it anyway." Q patted his son on the shoulder even as they flashed into the future and were parked right outside of Starfleet Academy, "Now, what is your cover story?"

"Alexander Q. Harris, 18 years old, from Demons VI in the Boca Del Inferno system, first year student to the Academy and I am currently Undeclared as to my choice in Starfleet classification. My parents are both dead from a decades-long planetary war that has ended recently, which I too have also fought and killed in, which will also explain the scars and obvious military-style clothing I currently wear. I have no siblings and my planet is only accessible by way of direct contact because comms are dicey at best due to the highly ionized atmospheric conditions that exist on the D6. I am a trained combat soldier who has no qualms about killing the enemy with any and all means necessary and available, I have lost many friends and acquaintances along the way, which has made me more than a little jaded and cynical about diplomacy, and I could care less about being here but am here because of the fact that I had no and still have no say in the matter."

"Excellent, son," Q beamed proudly, as if pulling off this lie was going to be one for the record books. "Now, try to play nice with the mortals, keep your identity as secret as possible and know that if you need to talk, just whistle." Q patted him on the shoulders again and then winked out of existence as several people passed around Alex, leaving him alone in the future under an assumed name, from a fake planet in an equally fake system all for the sake of learning.

"Maybe I won't have to blow up this school like I did the last one." Grabbing his duffle and the guitar case he'd brought along, as he had learned guitar the Q way in the previous month, along with piano, typing and essential computer skills because of the need to survive in the Star Trek world, he walked into the Administration Building of Starfleet Academy like someone was shouting, 'DEAD MAN WALKING!'

Xander looked around the room he had been assigned to share with someone, an Upperclassman, and repressed a sigh of relief; nobody had caught on to the lie yet, thankfully, but seeing as Q had assured him that nothing could possibly go wrong, Xander, due to his living on the Hellmouth through his formative years, automatically assumed that everything would.

The room was a standard room of about ten feet wide by twelve feet long with a bunk bed, two computer terminals, two closets, a sonic shower unit and a bathroom, but very little else. His roommate was shown to be a third-year Medical student named Richard Maxwell from Boston on Earth and, just by looking at him, was going to be a real pain in the ass with the superior smirk on his face and his pretty boy looks, "So, you're the new kid they stuck me with?" Richard looked him up and down before snorting, "Man, they made a mistake letting you in here."

"Look, asshole," Xander snapped out immediately, not liking his roomie one bit from the get go, "I am here to learn, to be a Starfleet officer, but mostly to get away from that hellhole of a war zone my people call a planet, so back off and there won't be any problems." It was hard to believe how easy it was to lie like that, but it wasn't too hard with how angry Xander was getting.

"And what planet is that?"

"Demons VI in the Boca Del Inferno system, Dick." Xander forced himself to remain angry even as Richard's face paled in recognition of some kind; apparently Q had set up an entire background on the place and made it known to many, "I take from the look on your face that you've heard of it."

"Who hasn't? You really survived that place?"

Xander let an old mask slip over his eyes and felt the light fade out of them, leaving them with a dead look called The Stare, "Are you sure you want an answer to that?" His voice was dead, emotionless, and made Richard quake slightly and pale further. Internally, though, Xander was howling in laughter at the sight of his new roommate doing is best not to crap his pants, "So, which bunk is yours?"

The comms system buzzed and Richard answered it, looking glad that he had a chance to keep his mind off of his new roommate, "Yes?"

The visage of Admiral Katherine Janeway appeared on the comms screen in front of him, looking slightly confused, "Is Alex Q. Harris there, by any chance, cadet?"

"Yes, Admiral, he just got here a few minutes ago."

"Send him my way, Cadet."

"Yes, Ma'am," he nodded to her as the comms shut down. Turning to look at 'Alex', he frowned, "What did you do to get Admiral Janeway on your case already?

Xander shrugged, "Knowing me? I've probably broken every rule in the book by just breathing and dressing like this." Richard saw the dark and obviously military-designed clothing he wore and figured that it was a safe bet. "Where is she?"

Richard gave him directions and Xander left immediately, walking briskly along the corridors of the dormitory towards the offices of the ranking staff, drawing only occasional looks because of either his clothing or possibly military bearing. It took him only a few moments to get to his destination, but then he realized that he had no idea how to ring the proverbial doorbell, so he just pounded the pines, as it were, and got a loud, "Come," in response.

Xander walked into the office and saw his Aunt Kathy, Admiral Janeway, sitting in her chair behind a desk, holding a cup of coffee. He walked forwards, stopped in front of her desk and stood at attention, more out of instinct than anything, "You wished to see me, Admiral?"

"For the record, it's the button at the bottom of the pad next to the door," she advised him dryly with a slight grin before indicating for him to sit down with her coffee cup.

Remaining standing, he nodded, "Thank you, Admiral, and I'll remember that."

"I expect you would, Alexander. Now, I must ask, have we ever met before? You look remarkably like a young man I met on my way back from the Delta Quadrant on Voyager some years ago."

"I do not remember ever being to the Delta Quadrant, ma'am, and if it were a few years ago, I was probably hip-deep in blood and rubble in what would be one of the last large battles on Demons VI."

"Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about, Alexander. You have seen combat and have killed – so tell me why you want to be a Starfleet Officer instead of a Marine."

"Ma'am, I personally believe that one should have all of the skills necessary to end a … situation in the weapon you hold in your hands, but that reason, along with several others, are the main reasons that the wars on my planet lasted for as long as they have; if I become an officer and learn to at least try and be diplomatic, then perhaps others on my world will follow that lead and it will all work out for the best."

"Yet you still wear military clothing despite wanting to be an officer."

"I am more comfortable in these BDUs then I am in your down-time clothing, ma'am; nothing personal, but the late twentieth and early twenty-first century clothing that used to be on Earth is more comfortable to me than those one-piece things I was assigned to wear." That in and of itself was a bald face lie - he preferred jeans and a t-shirt to BDUs, but he'd have to make sacrifices.

Janeway smiled, "You're not the first to say such things, Mister Harris. I would ask, however, that you not wear your beret with your ensemble; it has obvious military connotations and that is not an image that Starfleet wishes to project."

"Despite the fact that you are a military institution with vessels of both war and research in the same ship? That you train shock troops in the arts of stealth and covert operations under the guise of security training, telepaths to access or block memories with impunity and even have your own dark secrets locked away in Section 31?"

"Precisely. It appears that you know the score on some of the … darker aspects of Starfleet, but I assure you that we do not use those resources lightly, in fact I would prefer it if we never used them at all."

"Ma'am, I'm a soldier, so I can understand and appreciate the arguments for and against what you are saying, so let's leave this debate for when I take political science and strategic thinking classes, shall we?"

"We shall. Now, I have called you down here because the computer has decided to make me your mentor for this semester – that means that I will be helping acquaint you with your classes and some of the technology you will be coming across here, but also I will be making progress reports to Starfleet about you, your grades and your interactions with the students here. I trust that you will not be having any troubles?"

"None for the foreseeable future, Admiral, but for the record, I am a light sleeper and I sometimes react violently when startled or attacked – don't be surprised that if the latter of the two happen, someone other than me will end up in the medical facilities."

"I understand completely, but I ask that you refrain from doing such things. Now, to acquaint you with Starfleet technology that you will be running across every day, I have set up a tutor for you and several other students whom have not grown up with it as many of the cadets here have. Meet me here at 0700 hours tomorrow morning and we'll get you to class. Any questions so far?"

"Just one, ma'am – what day is it?"

AN: I know this paints X as a more militant individual, but remember what his cover story is – he's just trying to fit in with it.

As it turned out, Admiral Janeway had told several others to meet up at her office door at 0700 hours the next morning; not needing any real sleep, Xander was awake and ready to go by 0600, so he amused himself by playing his guitar for a little while before humping it double-time over to her office. The first young woman was obviously part Vulcan due to her pointed ears, but her skin was somewhat pale, hair was dark as coal and her eyes were the most curious shade of green he had ever seen – quite frankly she looked just like Willow but with dark hair and pointed ears. The second young woman was obviously part Klingon from the ridges on her brow and nose, and it was a little hard for him not see her as a vampire due to said ridges; her hair and eyes were dark and her skin was very nice with just a hint of light tan, in it, making it slightly dusky. Both were taller than most of the females he had seen, easily five feet seven inches at least, and while both were slim, they held a muscular set that made him wonder just what they did to work out.

The other person there was familiar to him; he'd seen her on the bridge of Voyager when he and Butch showed up quickly, and she was currently dressed in a Starfleet uniform with Lieutenant's pips and yellow markings that signified ops or security – her hair was blonde as a wheat field and up in a bun, her eyes blue like sapphires and skin like cream. In short, she was a goddess among women and Xander was sure that, had his heart not already belonged to another woman, that he would have had to try his luck with her, "Ladies."

They all looked at him, the two younger ones with something that approached suspicion but the third with a look of near-recognition, but they all nodded at him as the Admiral walked up in her uniform, "Thank you for meeting here, cadets, Seven. Follow me, please." She led them through a small rabbit's maze of buildings, corridors and tunnels until they reached a room that was sealed with heavy doors, "Now, I am sure you are wondering what you are doing here, cadets, and I shall explain. This is Lieutenant Anika Henson, and she will be teaching you the basics of Starfleet technology while I observe. Seven, this is Wendy Michaels of Vulcan Prime, B'eth De'lan of the Dryad system, and Alex Harris of Demons VI." All three women flinched at the name and Xander briefly wondered just what Q had put down with the planet.

They entered the room and quickly got situated at different terminals while the Admiral and Lt. Henson, whom Aunt Kathy had referred to as 'Seven', "You may begin after I have a quick word with Mister Harris." She proceeded to drag Xander across the room and spoke in a hushed tone, "Where is your father, Alexander? Is this some kind of sick game of his?"

Xander, for his part, had the good graces to look sheepish, "No, Aunt Kathy, it is not; he wants me to understand as much as I can HUMANLY understand about this universe before I start mucking about in it – what better place to learn about the universe as a human than Starfleet? I assure you that my powers are repressed for the most part and I am here to learn; there are no tricks, no charades, only as much truth as you can handle right now."

She looked only slightly relieved, "And the back story of Demons VI? Also fictional?"

Xander shrugged, "You'd have to ask him, Aunt Kathy. From the looks on your faces, thought, I presume that it is pretty bad."

Aunt Kathy looked at him with no small amount of shock, "You haven't looked it up?"

Xander snarled slightly, "No, because that over-developed pocket calculator in my room keeps buzzing at me and saying Access Denied."

Aunt Kathy smiled, "The replicators do the same thing to me, Alex. Now, go and learn how to use the computers."

The class went fairly quickly as far as it went; Lt. Henson explained things in cool, clipped tones that expressed that nothing less than excellence would be accepted out of the three of them. Wendy, the Willow look-alike, was the first to get things rolling, letting out an very un-Vulcan-like squeal of happiness when the terminal didn't beep at her, as if saying, WRONG! B'eth, the half-Klingon, seemed to be getting by well enough with only one or two snarled comments about the programmer's parentage and sexual preferences, but Xander found himself neck deep in trouble as soon as he pressed the first key; vile, scathing oaths were directed not only at the computer, but the programmer, the builder and the originator of the design of the terminal – Wendy frequently blushed a deep green color (AN: Vulcans have green blood, not red), Lt. Henson arched her eyebrow every few seconds and B'eth looked to be filing several of the oaths away for later use.

Finally, Xander had enough, "Listen to me you little piece of garbage, either you start working NOW or I start re-programming you from the inside out with a dull axe and more than a few electro-magnets. Savvy?" The computer seemed to hesitate for a moment before complying with the request to access the historical databases of the known worlds and systems.

Lt. Henson looked at him with something approaching a smile on her lips, "Is the problem rectified, Cadet Harris?"

"I believe so, Lieutenant Henson; for the computer's sake, it had better be." He glared darkly at the terminal, but didn't miss the pair of snickers from the two female cadets or the smile that the Lieutenant gave him.

"Good, now for something that Admiral Janeway has asked me to call 'Getting To Know You' time. All I ask is that you, Mister Harris, try and keep your answers as … mild … as possible."

His lips twisted into a smirk as he quipped, "Sans blood, guts, swearing and body counts?"

"Exactly."

"Alright, I grew up on Demons VI in the middle of a war zone, had as normal of a childhood as I could until I was fifteen, I play guitar and piano and like to work with my hands to build things."

Wendy looked at him oddly, "Anybody else at home you want to tell us about?"

"They're all dead." If one looked at it the right way, that was true.

B'eth smiled, "You must be a great warrior, then."

"No, I survived by being the nastiest piece of work in the game; I lied, I double-crossed temporary allies of convenience to save my own hide, I assassinated key people and I even have been known to just flat-out run from any situation that I deemed too hot. I'm not a coward or a fool, I am a survivor." The sad part of the entire semi-speech is that most of it was true. "They all died meaningless deaths in a war that would be won at the negotiating table – much like many wars are." His tone was bitter, even a trifle bit over-done with the bitterness, but it worked.

Lt. Henson decided that it was time to move on, "Cadet Michaels?"

"Mom and dad are both one quarter Vulcan, so I'm half while my twin sister is completely human; mom and Jenny, my sister, died a few years back in the Borg invasion, and dad is an officer on the Reliant, so here I am. I like to paint and sing, though I'm not good at either, and I also despise jokes about my ears." She blushed lightly, covering her ears with her hair, "Kids always made fun of me in school because of them, so I've heard just about every joke in the book about them."

"I think they are one of your more defining features," Xander chipped in almost semi-helpfully, remembering when Willow had felt the same way about her hair that he had done the same thing back then.

"They are nice." B'eth managed to say doing her best, it appeared, to be nice.

Wendy smiled brightly, "Thanks, guys. Oh, and I act more like a human than a Vulcan, so don't be surprised."

"Cadet De'lan?"

"I grew up in the Dryad System with my great uncle after my parents were killed in battle against the Gem'hadar and I prefer to fight rather than to think diplomatically." She crossed her arms petulantly, as if she didn't like that fact, and looked absolutely adorable because of it. "Battles should be one with battle and skill, the true measures of a warrior."

"Skill is not winning battles with the blade, it is winning them without having to fight." Xander paraphrased with a slightly bitter tone, "I was taught that as a child even though my people do not practice it."

"And which idiot said that?"

"A great thinker named Sun Tzu here on earth over two thousand years ago – his stratagems were used to create the game of chess and are still used to this day. Read a book called The Art of War and you will become more … enlightened… in the ways of war and peace." Lt. Henson said succinctly before looking at Xander, "Your people know of Sun Tzu?"

"After the fact, yes. Before the war my … clan, for want of a better term, were scholars in the arts, and happened upon a copy of it. Interesting reading, very practical, but in an age of particle beam weapons and transporters, most of them no longer apply. Now, as we have gotten to know one another, how about yourself, ma'am?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and he gave her a winning smile, which made both Wendy and B'eth chuckle even as Lt. Henson blushed lightly, "Very well – I was assimilated into the Borg Collective when I was a child and was freed by then-Captain Janeway in the Delta Quadrant from being the Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero, or basically one of the right-hands of the Borg Queen herself. I eventually had most of my cybernetic implants removed, which allowed me to 'feel', and I am still learning how to do so." She looked back at him and cocked her head to one side, "You play the guitar and piano?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do – figured it would help me work on my finger mobility and dexterity." Actually, he had learned them on a dare from Faith and then Dawn when there was a definite lack of things to watch from the video store and on the television.

"Classical?"

"Some, but I prefer the music of Earth from the Twentieth and Twenty First centuries – they have more of a … primal beat to them, and they are what I started learning on." He blamed it completely on Oz, the Zen-like rock-and-roll werewolf, and would deny it to his dying day if someone said it was the 'Puppy-dog Eyes' that he had taught to Dawn years before, even if it were true.

"Your people have records from Earth's past?"

"Well, we did before the war started – if they still exist now, that's anyone's guess."

They went back and forth over little details about one another, Xander learning that his Willow look-alike, Wendy, was also scared of spiders, B'eth despised Klingon opera because of the fact that she was not allowed to listen to it as a child, Anika liked strawberries and they learned that he was, before the war, something of a jokester/comedian, which brought three raised eyebrows and a 'fascinating' from Wendy.

"Now," Anika said after a while, "back to work."

Chapter 2 

The last strains of Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters' echoed from within the holodeck, where Wendy and B'eth, his two best cadet friends within Starfleet, had drug him after a particularly grueling exo-biology class that afternoon – they had no classes after that one, and he had lost a bet to them about who had made the best scores on a recent exam, so he played and they listened.

"Remarkable," Wendy said softly as he put down the guitar and flexed his fingers. "Such expression in a song from nearly four centuries ago, it's … remarkable."

"I believe you have said that before," B'eth said with a wry twist to her lips, making her look more like Faith than she normally did – it had taken him nearly a week to place the face and even then it wasn't the same, as his Faith had a Boston accent and this one didn't. "Still, it is good to know that there is a touch of artist within ancient humans."

He was quiet, the meaning of the song, not to mention the rhythm of it still echoing within his skull – so close, not matter how far; couldn't be much more from the heart; forever trusting who we are; and nothing else matters. I never opened myself this way; life is ours, we live it our way; those were words that Faith had lived by more than once in her life and he could see how it was so easy for her to lose her way and her trust in people at times, "It's a good song with a message – I guess that's why the band lasted for over thirty years."

B'eth looked at him and smiled, "Tell me, Ale … Xander," she caught herself, remembering that he didn't like his full name. "Have you decided on what your major is going to be?"

He nodded, "Sort of – either engineering or ops. You?"

B'eth smiled, "Tactical."

Wendy squeaked and hopped up and down in her chair, smiling from ear to ear, "I got accepted into the Medical Program earlier today! I am SO the Vulcan." Wendy was so much like Willow it was scary.

"Don't you mean half-Vulcan?" Wendy stuck her tounge out at him even as B'eth began to snicker and the doors to the holodeck opened to reveal Lt. Hansen, "Ah, LT, good to see you made it."

Anika, as she asked to be called out of class, smiled as she walked in, tapping on a PADD she had in hand, "You lost a bet, Mister Harris, and when a bet is lost, all debts must be paid." She handed over the PADD and he sighed, "Your thumb, if you please?"

Even as he pressed his thumb to the rectangle provided, he still wasn't sure how he had been conned into making the wager that if Wendy got the highest score, he'd serve under Anika as her personal assistant, "When I find out how you three rigged this, I will get even."

"Shut up and play, human." B'eth snarked even as he picked up his guitar again.

"Any requests?" Truth be told, he should have known better as when all three of the ladies got together, they all listened to one song over and over and OVER again – another Metallica hit, One. Anika liked it because of the fact that she said that the song was so complex, B'eth liked it for several reasons, not least of which was that she could easily remember the words and sing along, and Wendy seemed to like the song for it's somewhat anti-war vibe, though he was sure that she was just humoring them all – he personally didn't like the song as it brought up too many old and unpleasant memories of Soldier Boy.

"Something softer this time," Anika chipped in with a little smile, surprising him. "I do believe the title is 'Knocking On Heaven's Door'."

He looked at her oddly, "You listen to Guns N Roses? Why LT, I'm shocked, no, really, I am." Once she had been turned on to the old school kind of rock and metal, Anika seemed to be hooked for some odd reason.

She merely glared at him as the computer provided the background base, drums and guitars while he played a riff on his own – most of the songs he knew by heart from his childhood or his now-perfect memory as Q, but some of the more obscure ones he still had to look at the sheet music for. Fate, however, didn't allow for him to get much further as the Comms system chimed and called for him, "Yes?"

"This is Admiral Janeway, Alexander – I need to see you in my office immediately." He blanched, knowing that Aunt Kathy would not do something like this if there were not a good reason, and dropped hi guitar, excusing himself as he ran to the door, taking note of the worried looks on the faces of his friends. Fortunately for him, Aunt Kathy's office wasn't that far from where he had been, so in under five minutes he was at her door, tapping the door panel and entering.

"You called, Admiral Janeway?" Aunt Kathy was sitting at her desk and in the twin chairs before here were two people that looked vaguely familiar – one was the Vulcan male he had seen on the Bridge of Voyager and the other … just looked familiar, though both wore the rank of Lt. Commander and were in yellow-shouldered uniforms.

"Alexander, I'd like you to meet Lt. Commander Tuvok, Chief of Security training here at the Academy and Lt. Commander Reginald Barkley. I have called you here to meet with them on a situation that concerns me."

"Sirs?"

Tuvok took the lead, standing and handing over a PADD, which held several graphics and scrolling print, "These readings were picked up over the main continent of Demons 5, the planetoid approximately one million kilometers closer to your System's sun than your own. As your own planet has electromagnetic disturbances due to the elemental and magnetic differences in the crust, I would like to know your opinion as to what is going on."

Xander, since figure out how to work the computers and not get buzzed at, had researched everything on his new home planet and had sat back on his haunches on just how detailed and graphic his father had made it – wars spanning entire centuries, weapons that rivaled nuclear bombs, body counts in the billions, and all of this spread over seven continents that vaguely resembled plateaus of rock covered in dense jungles, deserts, mountains and vast grasslands. He himself was considered something of a living legend in some parts, but he attributed that to some creative thinking on his father's part and left it alone, and went on to the geological surveys made by Starfleet and the Federation on his planet – Demons 6 was basically a powder keg of elements that had been put together in just the right amounts and areas to completely screw with the electromagnetic particles in the air that caused hellacious thunderstorms and made it almost impossible for most non-military-grade communications to exist, and those same elements were in the makeup of it's closest planetoid, Demons 5. "Well, sir, if I am reading this correctly, you're worried about a massive influx of energy that could continue to build and possibly detonate volatile gasses in the crust of D5, correct?"

Lt. Commander Barkley took up at that point, "That's right, though in the past it has shown that massive storms have erupted before that comes around. If there was some way to … harness this electrical output safely then perhaps we could do so on your own planet, Cadet Harris."

"Permission to speak freely, Admiral." She nodded and he sighed, "Rule one – never mess with Mother Nature, sirs. IF, and this is a big if, you could do it, what would you use the energy for, sirs? Where would you store it? Even if you DID manage to pull it off, you'd have most of the people on Demons 6 fighting you tooth and claw to get their hands on that power, namely because it is a natural resource that they would never be able to get their hands on." He stopped and looked at the Admiral, who was wearing a huge smile on her face, "This was a test, wasn't it."

"Guilty as charged, Cadet – there is no build up of energy in the crust of Demons 5, or any other planetoid in your solar system. All this was meant to do is to place you in the correct professional path of Starfleet." She looked over at Lt. Commander Barkley, who was smiling nervously, "Treat him well, Reg, because I have a vested interest in his education."

"Yes, Admiral. Cadet, if you'll come with me." Xander drew to attention and followed the Lt. Commander Barkley out of the room as the Admiral and Tuvok began to chat amicably about the test that had been run, "I hope you don't mind us doing this, Cadet, but we needed to see how you work under pressure."

"I eat pressure for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sir." A little bit of bravado never hurt anybody, did it?

Lt. Commander Barkley chuckled at that, "Good to hear, because with your teachers, you'll need it. Commander Geordi LaForge and Lt. Commander B'elana Torres are two of the best Starfleet has to offer and for some reason, Admiral Janeway seems to think that you'd benefit from their tutelage."

Xander winced, "Sir, I'm still a first semester Freshman – I don't have any advanced courses until a year from now."

"We re-evaluated your test score and you've shown that you can handle a little extra work, Cadet."

"I lost a bet, sir – I am currently Lt. Hansen's Personal Assistant for the next six months."

That stopped the Lt. Commander and he arched an eyebrow, "You are Seven's PA? HA! I win."

Xander arched an eyebrow, "Um, sir? What are you talking about?"

"Scuttlebutt's been that Seven, I mean, Lt Hansen, has gotten someone as her PA and he's a Freshman – the general bet has been on who it was and I went out on a limb and bet on you."

Xander blinked, "Uh, sir, do I need to be worried that the Brass of the Academy has nothing else better to do than to place wagers on who gets to be who's PA?"

Lt. Barkley merely chuckled at that and resumed walking.

Later that evening 

He hurt everywhere despite the fact that he had been sitting inside of a padded seat for most of the afternoon and evening – legs, arms, back, feet, fingers, hell, even his hair hurt from the amount of tossing around he had been put through in the simulator. While Commander LaForge was not on Earth at the time, Lt. Commander Torres was and she had been in a particularly bad mood that day, or he hoped she had been – she'd run him through the wringer and he knew that were it not for what he truly was, he'd not be getting out of bed the next morning.

Of course that was when the chime of his shared door went off and he knew that it wasn't his roommate, as he often was up all day and all night studying or with his lady friends, "Yeah?" The door opened to reveal the worried face of Wendy and B'eth not far behind her, but he was rather surprised to see Anika/Seven of Nine behind them as they entered, "Hey, guys."

Wendy came over and immediately began to poke and prod him for any broken bones, babbling to herself in Standard (English) and the occasional Vulcan word thrown in there, while B'eth arched an eyebrow and Lt. Hansen merely watched, "Are you okay?"

"I look better than I feel; is Lt. Commander Torres always that … aggressive … in the simulation chambers?"

Anika winced and nodded, "She demand excellence as a minimum and perfection as the standard. She is a … satisfactory Chief Engineer."

"Well, she's been assigned as my keeper while I'm in training until Commander LaForge gets back – apparently Admiral Janeway likes me enough to make sure I learn from the best." He groaned and got to a sitting position n his bunk before swinging his feet out and dropping to the ground, but then sat down on Richard's bunk, "She seemed a bit … agitated today. Is that rare? Please?"

Anika let him down gently, "No, I am afraid it is not rare – Lt. Commander Torres is a half Klingon and her spouse often irritates her to no end, so it is her crew that often feels the brunt of her anger."

Xander groaned and let his head drop back to the bunk as he slumped back, "Perfect – just what I need."

"It could always be worse, Cadet – you could be the one she is angry with." He looked up and gave Anika, who was smirking, the evil eye before sitting up and she went on, "Regardless, if you have been assigned to her, then you have shown aptitude that Starfleet likes."

"Joy – can't you see I am so joyous of this?" He stood up and stretched, groaning as he did, and then yawned, "So, what do I get to look forward to?"

"Construction, maintenance, destruction, more maintenance, Research and Development, even more maintenance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." He looked at Wendy, whom had found an old movie, The King And I, in the archives and loved that one line by Yul Brenner, and arched an eyebrow as she blushed, "Well, it's true, you know."

B'eth snorted, "I have heard of Lt. Commander Torres and while she is half-Klingon, it is generally her husband that sets her off, as Anika has said, but one thing that I have noticed is that she … enjoys working with her hands." He looked at her and she elaborated, "Her spouse has turned her onto holographic repair and restoration of ancient Internal Combustion Engines and vehicles that use them. Perhaps you can … find common ground."

Xander nodded and went over to his console, "Any suggestions?"

"Ensign Parris was working on a 'Camero' on Voyager, so I would suggest something of the sort as well." Anika punched up several databases of information and one immediately caught Xander's eyes – Classic 'Muscle' Cars, "If there is something to search for, it is in here."

(Next morning – Holodeck)

Lt. Commander B'elana Torres-Parris was in a far better mood this morning than she had been the previous one – Tom had finally owned up to the fact that he had agreed to take care of their daughter at night, due to the fact he had afternoon classes, while she had morning classes, and she had actually gotten more than six hours of sleep, which made for a 'Happy B'elana', according to Harry, who had finally gotten promoted to Lieutenant. All of this meant that her new charge, one Cadet Alex Harris, would probably not be running away from her on sight – she'd been very upset when Reg had dropped the kid off to her the day before and the kid had borne the brunt of the anger with an impassive air reminded her way too much of Tuvok. "You alright under there, kid?"

"Just peachy, Ma'am." Cadet Harris, 'Xander', as he had asked her to call him, was a so much like some of the crew on Voyager it was scary – he had Harry's innocent sense at time, Naomi's playfulness, the Doctor's arched sense of self on occasion (though she had seen that was an act on both parts), the Captain's sense of duty, Tom's sense of humor (though at least the kid knew when to put it away and get to work) and the smart mouth of … herself. All in all it was a scary combination, as he could probably get away with murder using those brown eyes of his. He was currently re-wiring a command console as part of a test without the correct tools, without the correct replacement parts and against a time constraint that was quickly approaching.

"Two minutes left, so bust hump, kid."

"Speed in working eventually creates sloppiness, Lt. Commander, and I am not sloppy … most of the time." The kid pushed himself out from under the console and began to tap away on the working command console, running it through the paces before the turned to her, "Done."

She arched her eyebrow and tapped away at her PADD, looking at the readouts that said, yes, he had done what she had asked him to do to the best of his limited abilities, but the console was still at only 84 efficiency – which was exactly what she expected out of a green cadet, "Not bad, but not great." She spent the next ten minutes explaining to him what he had done wrong, showing him all sorts of short cuts, which he largely seemed to ignore, and modifications to what he had done until the efficiency was up to 100, "You have a lot of room to improve, kid."

"I've been a cadet for less than a month, Ma'am, and I have a long way to go – plus I'm still learning all the new systems." She had to give him that – she'd read up on the hellhole of a planet he had grown up on and had to give him credit for even having gotten this far, "So, what's next?"

"Basic Engineering 101 – three semesters of pure hell, but in the end you can repair, maintain, and otherwise run 90 of the things in Starfleet. Doesn't that just make your skin tingle?"

He gave her a look and replied in a deadpan voice, "Joy." He watched the holodeck reset itself into a new configuration and it showed an entire host of problems – all on the bridge, numerous displays and consoles were damaged or destroyed, with low lighting and power, a holographic tool kit at his side, with the correct tools this time, and numerous dead bodies around him. "I take it this isn't an after-the-bachelor-party scenario."

"Only on a Klingon Cruiser," she smirked as she brought up the data on her PADD. "You have numerous casualties who can't be saved, an unknown condition on the rest of the ship, and no systems are up except for life support – where do you start?"

The kid looked around and immediately dropped his tool kit to move the 'dead' bodies so that they were out of the way – B'elana wasn't sure about this move, or about the cold proficiency he did it with, but nodded as he was soon working on the power relays that fed the main engineering station along the back part of the bridge, as from there he could access damage reports, distribute or regulate any power that was necessary and possibly run diagnostics. From there he went on to the Ops station and began to first replace the crushed displays and then make only the necessary repairs to make it operation, thus conserving his time and resources, and it was about this time that she noticed his foot tapping along with some apparently unheard tune.

"What are you listening to?"

"Nothing – just playing a song in my mind, Ma'am." She blinked at the response and continued to watch and listen until she heard a half-mumbled 'And I disappear'. Her mind went on it's merry little way to place those three words, which were probably nothing more than a song from his world, but as Seven had been asking her for any and all old Earth 'rock' groups, she had a good idea of whom was to blame for it.

"So, how are you getting along with the Academy? Any real problems?"

"Class on Saturday mornings," he grunted out while horsing a panel out of the way, "is an un-natural thing to ask for out of anybody. Aside from that, Cadets Michaels and De'lan, not to mention Lt. Hansen, are probably the best friends a guy could ask for around these parts."

"All of your friends are female?"

"Some things never change – back home, I had a friend, a brother in all ways but blood, but he died pretty early on and that left me with another friend, Willow. Buffy showed up and others came in along the way, but in the end, I was the one who made it out alive, ma'am." She could hear the pain in his voice as he obviously remembered his friends who had died in a senseless war, as she herself had lost friends in firefights that had not made sense, but there was something else he wasn't telling her and she wasn't going to pry.

"Why aren't you a Marine, then? I read your service record and I'm sure the Commanders over there are salivating at the chance of getting someone like you."

"'Look not into the abyss, for one day you shall find that it is looking back at you', Lt. Commander – there are times past that I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the guy looking back at me. If they want me, they can come and get me, but I think I've seen enough combat to last me several lifetimes, all said and done." He slid out from under the console and she could see on her PADD that the entire thing was working at 97 efficiency as he went to check on numerous things, redistributing power supplies and running diagnostics as he went, but B'elana was sure that in his mind, he was still back home mourning his dead friends.

Xander 

'Why in the hell did she have to bring them up? Damn it, I was almost able to let them rest in peace.' It had taken Xander a week to finally put to rest that, if timelines were congruent, that his friends were dead and dust for centuries; it had hurt to think of them all as dead, Faith especially, but he also knew that once this was over, he'd be going back home and not leaving them for the rest of their natural lives.

"You okay, kid?" He looked over at Lt. Commander Torres and saw regret in her face as he nodded, "Good – you have diagnostics running, life support has been restored to 35 of the ship, comms is fried but can be repaired and sensors are down, what's next?"

"Communications – if there's someone down in Engineering, we can coordinate our work and get it done faster." His hands punched out the correct sequence of keys and the display showed that the Comms unit was basically fucked up the ass without so much as a hope of getting it to work in the near future, "Alright, Plan B is Sensors."

"Time's running out for anyone who is alive, kid – make a choice." He didn't even bother to look up as his fingers began to tap out commands to re-route internal energy to sensors that were working and augmenting others in ways that he wasn't sure would work.

"Computer, scan the ship for any other survivors."

(Unable to comply. Internal sensors are off-line.)

"Re-rout internal sensors through Navigational Sensors and focus them on the internal structure of the ship." He danced his fingers over the command console while the computer didn't, for once, give him any flak and did what he asked.

(Scan complete – there are 549 life forms aboard this vessel.)

"Are there any in Main Engineering?"

(Negative.)

"Hurry it up, kid."

He ignored her, furiously thinking of ways to get out of the simulation, "Where are the closest survivors in proximity to Main Engineering?"

(Shuttle Bay Three – ten crewmen, four of which are currently cutting through the main door.)

"Can we open a comms channel to them?"

(Negative. Warning – Warp Core Breech in 27 minutes. Warp Containment down to 43 and falling.)

"Shit!"

Later - B'elana 

The holodeck shut down after the simulation ended and she looked at the results from her PADD, "All souls lost after a Warp Core breech destroys the vessel. You lose, kid."

He snorted and worked a kink out of his back, "Still, I did damned good considering I was alone and you wouldn't and couldn't help me." He was right – he'd been able to stall off the Warp Core breech for almost two hours, but the inevitable happened, just as the program was made to do; if her memory served her correctly, the late Commander Data was the last person/android to make it out of the simulation alive and with the ship in tact, and that was because he had re-programmed the entire program to allow him to finish. Of course, nobody could PROVE it, so it went unsaid as to what had happened.

"I'll give you that you were creative, but not that you were that good." He glared at her and she smirked, "But still, you did alright. Now, what did you learn from all of this?"

"That the next three semesters are going to make me wish I had died in combat?" His sarcastic reply brought a smirk to her lips but then he sobered up, "I have a lot to learn and a short amount of time to learn it in."

"Good. Now, go back to your room and learn all you can, because at 0700 tomorrow, your ass belongs to me."

He gave her a smirk, "Oh, but what better hands for it to be in?" He laughed and left the holodeck with a jaunty salute, leaving her to smirk again and wonder what Tom had cooked for dinner.

Later – The Quad – Xander 

"So how was your day, Wendy?" The half-Vulcan looked at him and he sighed at the look of fear there, "Spiders in Xeno-biology?"

"No." She sat down next to him even as B'eth went about her daily exercises with a staff, "You're going to be leaving us, aren't you."

"Ah, what?"

"You're going to be an engineer and you're not going to be with B'eth or me anymore." She curled into a ball and it finally struck him – Wendy was Willow in the same respect that Willow had always been emotionally needy of someone to hold on to and to be held by, which, given that she was a Vulcan, was rather odd as they were trained from an early age to be as non-emotional as they could.

He merely shrugged, "Wendy, you're my friend and nothing can really change that – even if I was an Engineer, do you really think that I'd go without contacting you every few days if I could?"

"I've read your file, Xander, the one from Demons 6, and Starfleet will draft you into the Marines as a Combat Engineer." He flinched physically, having read that file too, and she turned to look at him, "Did you really kill all of those people?"

"Personally, I probably killed about a third of them, and the rest by my actions – you'd be surprised how far a chemical cloud can spread after you detonate its container." The lie came so easily it scared him, but then he thought about what she had said, "Hold on a second – how'd you get ahold of my file? I barely got ahold of it."

Wendy looked very sheepish about it for a second, blushing green as she did, until she admitted, "I kinda hacked their systems." Once a Willow, Always a Willow, even if she was a Wendy – she went off into the techno-babble of it all, how she had bounced sub-space signals and made false inquiries from people who didn't really exist anymore, and went on and on and on until B'eth came over and shut her up by smacking the half-Vulcan in the backside with her staff, "HEY!" The pair squabbled back and forth for several minutes but that too was broken up when Anika walked over in her downtime clothing of slacks, a shirt and some boots.

"Greetings, fair and lovely Lieutenant." From his sitting position he bowed graciously and then came up with a smile, "So, who's your date with?"

"Date?" Wendy and B'eth fell on this tangent like a starving pair of dogs on a bone as Anika blushed heavily and looked away, "Who is he?"

"An old friend from Voyager, and we are NOT going out on a date – we're having a friendly dinner and perhaps some dancing afterwards."

"Su-u-u-u-re," he, Wendy and B'eth drawled out as one, looking at each other. "Name?"

"Lieutenant Harry Kim."

3 weeks later - Saturday afternoon - after class 

Xander groaned as he poured himself into his rack, uncaring of anything and everything that could have possibly been right or wrong with the world or Federation - naturally, again, that was when his door chimed and as Richard wasn't there, it had to be for him, "Enter!"

"Why brother, aren't you happy to see me?" Q2 smiled as he flashed into the room, wearing his Command Starfleet Uniform, though not with Captain's pips, but rather a single filled pip, which meant Ensign.

"Die a horribly vile and laborious death, brother." B'elana had put him through the paces that morning, pushing him to just about the limit of his rather incredible patience - they had gotten around to her showing him how to fix more than just command consoles and PADDs, like simple repairs on conduits and structural repairs.

"You're not that lucky, brother." Q2 smiled and looked around, "So, how are classes?"

"Long, hard work and they aren't going to get any easier even with my now-perfect memory." He looked over and frowned, "Question - just how far out of the way did dad go when creating my supposed home planet?"

Q2 shrugged, "Oh, I'm sure he put more than a few future ideas for tests for you in the works, but aside from that, probably nothing more than the usual." He looked around again and smiled, "How about we drop in on Aunt Kathy?"

"Is she alone?" Admiral Janeway had been checking up on him in all of his classes and was on his case just because his mathematics classes, all of which were fairly remedial, were a little on the low side. Anika, Wendy and B'elana had been tutoring him as they worked on work, homework and more work, and while his grade over the past two weeks had improved greatly, it was juts above average and that was something Aunt Kathy would not allow.

Q2 lost his smile as he checked and then scowled, "No, she's with that Chakotay. If ever there was a man without a sense of humor who wasn't a Vulcan, it was him."

"What'd you do to him to make him lose that sense of humor, bro?" Xander hopped out of his rack and grunted as he landed, before pulling on some casual clothing as his brother flashed into similar clothing to blend in.

Q2 shrugged, "I made his sonic shower flow with chocolate, vanilla and Vulcan cherry pudding before making his replicator give him uniforms that were all either too big or too small." Q2 was truly his father's son in that when he found a good straight man, he played him to the hilt as far as the jokes went.

"Is that all?" He noted the somewhat sheepish sort of look his brother gave him and left it alone, "So, how're mom and dad?"

"They are well - mother worries that these primitive being will retard your ability to be Q, Father is surprised you haven't caused the place to blow up already, especially given how your last school turned out, and most of the Continuum is rather curious how long it will be before your friends out you as Q."

Xander snorted as he and Q2 left the room, only to run right into Anika and Harry, both of whom looked more than a little surprised at whom he was walking with, "Hey, Anika, Harry." Off duty, Harry had also asked him to call him 'Harry', which made Anika smile - the pair of them had been 'not-dating' for almost two weeks and while the girls gushed over just how cute of a couple they made (which was odd, given their lineage of Vulcan and Klingon, respectively), he had kept somewhat apart from them and buried in his studies.

Harry looked at Q2 and hissed, "What are you doing here, Q?" While at the same time Anika's face dawned in recognition and she slapped him on the shoulder, "You should have told me you were Q!"

Xander's head sunk to his chest while Q2 merely snickered, "So much for the easy way. He's my brother, you two - he's human right now, not Q, but either way I came here to see how he was doing as both mother and father are both … indisposed." The pair of humans goggled at that and Q2 smiled a little more, "I'm going to go see Aunt Kathy and then Xander and I are going to the holodeck - care to join us?"

"Actually, I was gong to invite him along with us for something that Harry calls … double dating?" Anika looked at Harry, who nodded, and then looked back at Xander, "Apparently you are going to be on something called a 'blind date'."

Xander winced, his thoughts immediately turning to Faith, as he was sure that Q2's thoughts were turning to Ming-Tai, "Um, well, I really don't date well, I mean, REALLY don't date well - the last few I've had, well, they tried to kill me."

Anika blinked at this, as did Harry, but Q2 merely snickered at this fact as the Asian man shook his head and went on, "But I promised her you'd be there! She's a third-year cadet who just broke up with her boyfriend and…"

"Sorry, sir, but I am NOT rebound-man."

Anika looked a little fretful and then smiled, "There shall be Twinkies." She'd learned of his obsession with the snack cake somehow, which was odd seeing as they had not been made in over three hundred years, and knew that he was easily bribed with them - Q2 pantomimed someone setting the hook on a fish and reeling him in while Harry merely looked confused.

Xander then sighed and relented, "Let it be known that I was against this - if she tries to kill me, I'm going to get even." He looked over at Q2, who had a worried look on his face, "Don't worry - we'll go see your Aunt Kathy later."

Later 

Anika watched as her young friend desperately tried to not strangle the young scientist, an action that she was not sure that he'd get to as she wanted to do the same herself, who prattled on and on with how she had been hurt, how all men were pigs who needed to be destroyed and how he was a really good listener - Harry had said the girl, who's name was Angela, was quite the charmer, but Anika knew that sometimes Harry was, well, wrong, and this was one of those times as Angela had all of the charm of a Klingon Targ. Quite frankly, she was going to make it her mission in life that Harry never set up Xander like this again, "Harry, doesn't Xander need to meet B'elana at the Holodeck training facility?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right." Xander looked at the pair of them as if he were about to bestow an Admiralty upon them even as Angela frowned, blinking as her mind caught up with them.

"At this time of night? I thought you were an Engineering Major, Alexander?"

"Combat Engineer, actually, or so I've been told - given my past, it's not all that far of a reach." He sipped the drink before him and then stood, "Well, it's been real, but I have to get to the holodeck before Lt. Commander Torres comes looking for me … and I'm not sure that is a wise thing to do."

Harry snorted, "Such wisdom for one so young."

Anika didn't think it was that funny and elbowed him in the ribs, which he winced at and Xander snickered, "Xander, you are correct that it would be unwise. I'm sure Angela would excuse you."

Angela shot her a look of pure venom and Anika was surprised to see Xander frown at, but he had done so out of the view of Angela, "I'm sure I would. Perhaps another time, Alexander."

"Perhaps," he allowed before bowing slightly and walking away.

Once she was sure that Xander was out of earshot, Angela's fake smile vanished, "Ma'am, with all due respect, I know there is not a lesson he needs to get to - do not get involved with my love life, ma'am."

"Cadet, do not take that tone with her." Harry, still clutching his ribs from her not-so-gentle nudge, snapped back lowly as Anika drew herself up for a little glare of her own, "Alexander is a friend of hers and as such, she is only looking out for him, so I understand."

"And while we are on the subject of friends, I would like to inform you that two of his friends have been watching you the entire time, Cadet, and neither of them look happy." Wendy and B'eth had been spying on the quartet for nearly an hour and it was somewhat odd to see them alternating on just whom was holding whom back from charging in and throttling the scientist.

Angela looked around but saw nobody that looked like that at first, then turned back, "Permission to be excused, ma'am, sir?"

"Granted." They said as one and both let out a sigh of relief when the cadet left, "Well…" Harry started out and then sighed again. "That could have gone better."

"Indeed."

"Did Xander really have a training session tonight?"

"No, but I do seem to recall that he had booked some holodeck time with a new program of some kind, something about building things with his own two hands."

Holodeck - later 

Xander wiped his forehead and again looked around at the holographic room, nodding at what he had observed - at first glance at the database, he had wanted to rebuild a classic muscle car, something that made him want to grunt and growl like an ape or something, but after a short time that lost it's appeal and his former trade came back into play, carpentry. Soon he had changed his setup from 'modern' automotive to old-school creative, as in wood, stone and no modern tools - at first he'd just carved just little things that sat in his room, not to mention Wendy's and B'eth's, but over the past week he'd been working on something a little bigger and more ambitious.

"Ambition is good, brother." Q2 flashed into the room and Xander saw that he wasn't alone - Aunt Kathy was with him and she looked around for a second before she placed where she was, "Aunt Kathy and I chatted for a while and then I brought her here to have a look-see at what you've done so far."

She looked around again and then looked at his designs, "A sculpture of wood?"

"One must crawl before they walk, Aunt Kathy - this will be transferred to stone, eventually, but first I think I'd like to practice in wood first." It would be an obelisk, carved first out of pine, then out of mahogany and finally out of stone, and it would hold several names of people who had lost their lives in the fight he'd been in so long ago - Jessie McNally, Jennifer Calendar, Kendra McPherson, Tara McClay and the names of the Potentials that Buffy had led to the slaughter in moments of pure pig-headedness. "What do you think?"

"Why not snap your fingers and be done with it?"

"Where's the fun in that? Like an old cartoon used to say, take chances, get messy, make mistakes but don't stop trying." He picked up his chisel again and scraped away several more curls of wood before looking at the nearly finished top, "So, how are you, Admiral?"

"Fine, Xander - being an Admiral isn't all it is cracked up to be."

He smiled, "Still wish you were a Captain?"

"At times - they took away my ship, and it's never easy for a Captain to give up her ship." She smiled and ran a hand over the rough surface of the body of the model, "We're like children at times in that respect."

Xander snickered even as Q2 looked on in confusion, "Yeah, B'elana, excuse me, Lt. Commander Torres, says that the secret to being any kind of an engineer is simply to not give the Captain what they want, but to give them what they need."

Aunt Kathy laughed unguardedly at that, even Q2 snickered at that, but then got herself under control, "That's good to hear from you, Alexander. I take it you know what's going to happen in two years, right?"

"Marine training - joy." It had been a distinct possibility from the get-go that he'd end up a Marine, even before Wendy had told him about it, but only that morning had it been confirmed that he'd been selected to join the Elite fighting force known as the Marines as a Combat Engineer - he'd go through all of his Engineering classes, but for the last two years of his education he'd be trained on Earth and abroad how to 'fight'. Personally, he could have actually given a rat's ass about it, but someone a lot higher up than him (in the human sense, that is) had made the decision, so he'd be forced to deal with it unless he was deemed unfit for Marine status … and his Soldier memories wouldn't allow for that.

"It could always be worse - you could be in Command and go through the Kobiyashi Maru simulation."

"The no-win test? No-thank-you-very-much," he quickly said as he remembered the last test he'd had like that, one that had ended in a warp core breech that killed everybody. He'd run that same simulation about six times since then and it had still come up the same as the last time, but each time he kept tacking on the amount of time the breech was put off by minutes and, this last time, entire hours. "Out of morbid curiosity, what's a Combat Engineer do?"

Her brow scrunched, "I'm not entirely sure myself, but I can put you in contact with other people who'd know more than I - on the basis, you'd be with a Marine Unit and you'd fix or make whatever they need to complete their mission, but outside of that, I'm not sure."

Q2 scrunched his nose up, "Are you sure you will be able to handle it, brother? I took the liberty of checking out the life of the Soldier who possessed you way back when, and I must say he was … particularly brutal, to say the least."

Xander nodded, having read the file before leaving for Starfleet, "Yeah, but he was the best there was at what he did, bro, and beside that fact, combat engineers."

Q2 frowned, "Wasn't that Wolverine?"

"That guy was a comic book character, brother - I guess Andrew infected you more than we had feared." Aunt Kathy looked quite lost, but Q2 paled as the meaning of it all sunk in, "Regardless, I only have a few minutes left, and I want to collect my stuff and save my progress, so hold on." Xander took just a few moments to do just that and shut down the holodeck before he, his brother and Aunt Kathy left the room so they could have some privacy and have a real conversation.

9 days later - Holodeck 

"So THIS is where you've been hiding out." Xander turned to see the last person he expected enter the holodeck - B'eth and Wendy had found out about his new habit a while back, and they had told Anika and Harry, but he always assumed that B'elana knew or at least suspected, but from the look on her face, she didn't, "Nice work."

"Thanks - I wanted to do Classic cars, but they seemed so … passé and overdone, so I thought that instead of destroying stuff, I'd actually make things." He turned his back on her and went back to carving out the letters of Kendra's name, having already done Jessie's and Jenny's, "What brings you here, Lt. Commander?"

"A call from Seven about her being worried about you." This brought his head up and he gave her his full attention, "Something happened and it's effecting you - what is it?"

Xander took a breath and looked down at the chisel in his hands before he sighed and put it down, "B'eth happened, ma'am."

"B'elana."

"B'elana. She asked me a question and I froze - sufficed to say the question, tone and who she looks like brought back more than a few ghosts that I thought I had put to rest, but I guess I was wrong." He walked over to 'his' workbench and pulled up a holographic picture that held the faces of every Scooby he could put a picture too and a few hand-drawn pictures for those that he couldn't find/create, and his finger's traced Faith's face, "Her name was Faith and sometimes I wonder if she and I were meant to be from the get-go."

B'elana's face came next to his shoulder and she looked at the picture, "She looks just like …"

"Yeah, she does, or rather, B'eth looks just like Faith used to - she and I weren't always friends, hell, she tried to kill me, but Faith and I eventually made peace before I left."

"So she's alive?"

"No - she's been dead for a while now." His heart, for once, didn't clench as he said it and as wrong as it felt to think or react to, it felt good that he could detach himself from his emotions like that, "I still have issues."

"It gets easier, you know - eventually their faces and voices fade, and you only remember the good times." He could hear the hurt in her voice, and knew that she had once lost someone like that, but he merely shook his head.

"Not Faith - she was one in a million, a billion, a googolplex." What a time for a cheesy Back To The Future 3 line - he was going to kill Andrew when he got back to his time.

He heard the doors open again and knew who it was without turning - he only knew one person who wore those types of boots and could walk that softly, "Klingon women stick together, I see."

"As a rule, no, but you inspire creativity, Xander." B'eth came to his other side and he could see that she was wearing her Klingon armor, "Was she your mate?"

"No, but I like to think that she and I could have been - I never had the best of luck with women, ever, and I guess that after Anya Faith was the one person who actually knew how to get me to drop my mask for five seconds and let me be me."

B'eth nodded and looked over at B'elana and then looked back at him as he put the picture down, "Honor her memory, my friend, and perhaps you will be allowed to see her again in sto-vo-kor. Until that point, though, live and love - I am sure she would want you to do so."

He looked over at her and frowned, "Is part of being half-Klingon, let alone female, that you give out annoyingly true snippets of wisdom whether we need it or not?"

B'elana snorted, "Only if you're human and male - I swear that Tom is out to make me old before my time." She walked back over to the wooden monument and traced her finger's over Jessie's name, "Who was he?"

"My brother in all ways but blood, and he was the first to die. He was … infiltrated, for lack of a better term, and to save someone who I've hated for most of my life from a fate worse than death … I killed him." He walked over and absently picked a shaving out of the bottom of an 'S' in the first name, "They all died far too early - Jessie by my hand, Jenny by the hand of an ally who turned on us for a while, Kendra by that ally's childe, and Tara was lost by a random act of stupidity that I should have seen coming."

"Cho-Ahn, Anya and … who is this?"

"Chloe. Anya died saving the life of an ally back home, she was the last, and the other two died because of a stupid girl who would listen to nobody and instead of being a general she only acted like one." He called out for the computer to save his progress and shut down his program, "Well, ladies, I have some studying to do, so if you will excuse me." He didn't wait for an answer and walked out of the holodeck, brooding slightly as he made his way back to his room, only to find his roommate there and awake.

"What are you doing here, Harris?"

"It's also my room too, Dick, so I have as much right to be here as you." He crawled up into his rack and sank down, doing his best to ignore his roommate, who was making a spectacle of himself.

"What if I had a woman in here? What if you walked in on us?"

"Then I would have had the common decency to walk out and not give you any grief about it." He could hear somebody shuffling around in the refresher unit, which was basically a small bathroom unit, and sighed, "What's his name?"

"WHAT?" Xander smiled at the pure shock in Richard's voice even as he pulled himself out of his rack and landed without so much as a sound, "I don't know what you're talking about - I'm not like you and into guys."

Xander only shrugged, "If I was into guys, Dick, I'd at least have the gumption to admit to it rather than to hide it like you do." There had been more than enough evidence to support his claim, but Xander, quite honestly, didn't care - after knowing that Willow was hay and possibly Andrew, he just couldn't bring himself to actually dislike anybody because of their sexual preference. He hated Andrew because he was annoying - big difference. "Either way, I'm out of here." As he passed the door of the refresher, he slammed his fist into it and heard a rather masculine voice shout in a startled voice and only chuckled as he walked out of the door to Richard's fuming and swearing.

Xander walked around the gardens and Quad of the Academy, the afternoon turning into evening as he did, until he came upon a sight that puzzled him; with all of the automation and futuristic technology, someone could have easily attended to the gardens and grounds of the Academy, but instead he saw an old man in old coveralls calmly cleaning up a planet of what looked to be young roses. If he were a day under ninety, Xander would turn in his Twinkie right then and there.

"Hello, young man." The old man looked up and his lined face held more wisdom and life experience than anyone that Xander had ever met, "What bring you here?"

"Just walking around, sir - needed to think." The old man nodded at this and then looked down at his roses before looking back up, "Need any help?"

"You know anything about flowers and gardens?"

"Not much, but I know about digging holes." He took a seat next to the old man, "Xander."

The man smiled, "I know - Demons 6 can be a rough place and your name was all around here since day one. Boothby." The old man looked around and frowned, "I feel something here, something I haven't felt in a long time."

"Well you should, old man," came the voice of his father, who flashed into existence between Boothby and the flowers. "I swear that if it weren't for the fact that you were once Q that everyone and their pet Targ would think you're the smartest man on the planet, which isn't saying much."

Boothby's face darkened as he straightened slightly, "What do you want, Q? I thought I told you never to come back here."

His father snorted, "Please, I do as I will, and there is nothing that you can do or say that can stop me from checking up on my son."

Boothby blanched and looked over at him, "You're his son?"

Xander could only nod, "Asked and answered, sir."

Boothby looked at him and then looked at Q, "I should have known - nobody with any sense would have believed that a place like Demons 6 could ever exist, let alone the Boca Del Inferno System."

Q smiled, "Ah, but you did, old friend."

Boothby snorted, "I shouldn't have - I got kicked out of the Continuum for the same trick a few million years ago."

Xander looked up at his dad, who shrugged, "Where do you think I got the idea from? Granted, his own attempted at creating an entire system of sex addicts and drug users was novel at the time, but hardly necessary."

Boothby snorted, "I was younger and a lot more foolish then, Q, and if I recall correctly, you've done some things since then that were even less necessary, so why start now?"

"Ah, how about I let you two get reacquainted?" Not giving either a chance to voice their opinion of his opinion, Xander lit out of the area quickly, his reason for brooding forgotten.

Chapter 3 7 weeks later - End of Semester minus 3 days 

It had been a little over three months since he had started Starfleet Academy and more than half of that time had been spent not only catching him up to speed on technology and history, but also finding his own limitation and niche in Starfleet - according to B'elana, he was shaping up to be one hell of an engineer, sort of, as he was currently stalled on repairing minor things in EPS conduits and being taught how warp drives worked, not to mention trying to keep up in the rest of his classes. The people who had made it bearable were his friends Wendy and B'eth, not to mention Anika (whom he now called Seven at her own request) and her now-official boyfriend Harry; Wendy had taken to medicine like a Ferengi to a swap meet and was excelling to a point that she was on the fast track to give Beverly Crusher a run for her money as CMO of Starfleet Medical. B'eth was also shaping up to be a great officer, but instead of the Ops that she wanted, she was now a pilot with specialties in starships instead of individual fighters - she had taken them on a simulated course not more than a week ago and Xander had said, then and there, that he'd never get into the same vehicle with B'eth if she was driving, something Wendy would have said as well if she had not already passed out.

Also since a while back, he'd stopped worrying about the past and about his dual identity - Boothby had not told a soul yet and hopefully would not, nobody else had come even close, though he was sure Seven had her doubts from her run-in with his brother nearly two months ago, and he had finally come to terms that he was Alex Q. Harris of Demons 6, war hero/butcher (depending on whom you believed), and in less than three days he would be in need of something to do for what amounted to the Christmas break. His brother had offered several suggestions, as had his father, Wendy and B'eth, but so far the best one had come from B'elana - he could serve on a freighter as an assistant Engineer in order to get some real experience while helping out an old friend of hers who was in need of a crew.

He looked up as the comms system chimed for him, "Yes?"

("Xander, it's Wendy - can you come to my quarters for a second? We need to talk.") His gut twisted a little as he acknowledged her and closed the channel before walking the few minutes to her place, one she shared with B'eth, and chimed for entry, an entry that was immediate.

"What's wrong, Wendy?" He had never seen this much of a worried look on her face as she sat him down next to her and calmly took his hand, squeezing it with her half-Vulcan strength.

"Um, well, you see, I have a confession to make, Xander." He felt his stomach clench even as B'eth, who was up in her rack, began to snicker at something, which caused Wendy to glare at her.

"Just come on out and say it, Wendy - trust me, I doubt you can top some of the things that I've seen, done and heard in my life."

"I'm pregnant."

Mental shutdown engaged. Rebooting - systems check - initializing OS "Uh … excuse me? Pregnant? Who is he and how hard can I kill him?"

B'eth snickered from her rack above as Wendy went a dark green color, blushing furiously, "NO! Xander let me explain." He calmed down just a fraction even as she clutched his hand, "Okay, I, myself, am not pregnant, but I will be soon, kinda - it's kind of hard to explain, but my Aunt, my mother's sister, needs some bone marrow and even though mom COULD donate it, there are some murky things going on and I'm going to be implanted with an embryo to carry to term."

"You're eighteen, Wendy! Who is this fucking person, where can I find them and what the HELL ARE THEY THINKING?" He only knew rage as the scenario played through his mind - Wendy was being used as some kind of a guinea pig and old protective instincts of Willow came into being, instincts that surpassed that of the Hyena, Soldier Boy and himself.

"Calm. DOWN!"

"HELL NO!" Through the din of his raging mind, even with Wendy screaming at him to calm down, he could hear B'eth's howling laughter, something that began to make several things click in his mind. He turned and glared at B'eth, who was now looking at him, "Okay, did you set this up?"

B'eth's face split into a huge grin even as Wendy began to calm down too, "Absolutely - human males are SO easily provoked, and I wanted to prove this to Wendy, so I thank you, my friend."

He narrowed his eyes and turned on Wendy, who was looking very small at that point, "And WHY did you chose the 'I'm Pregnant' track? Are you suicidal?"

"B'eth told me how guys act sometimes and I didn't believe her, so we set this up." She got really small then and meekly asked, "Are you mad at me?"

"Furious - I may be a mass-murdering asshole, but I draw the line at messing with children." Without another word, he stormed out of the room and to the nearest holodeck, blatantly aware that B'eth was no longer laughing and was asking him to come back and talk to them. He needed to hurt something, preferably something that wouldn't feel it, and the holodeck was elected.

B'eth 

She ignored Wendy's fretful babbles as they followed their friend down the corridors, which wasn't hard as people were just starting to come back into the halls from their hiding places. It had all been meant in good fun, but apparently there were hidden depths to their friend and, unfortunately, they had found a very sore spot meant to be in jest.

"Quiet, Wendy - we must apologize." Internally, though her voice was rough and cold, she was wondering just what in Sto-vo-kor she had been thinking when this plan had hit her.

"Why did I listen to you? He hates us. He'll never speak-tousagain-andweboth-knowthat-he-holdsagrudgeforver. OhwhydidIeverlistentoyouinthefirstplace? Whatwereyouthinking?"

"Quiet, Wendy! Yes, we messed up. No, I do not know what I was thinking at the time, but first we must find him before we can apologize to him," She half-carried, half-drug the half-Vulcan through the corridors towards the holodeck, only to be stopped by the voices of Seven and Harry.

"What's going on, you two? Why does Xander look ready to kill somebody?"

B'eth told them quickly of what they had done in jest and while Harry looked like a pole axed Targ, Seven looked very furious, "Look, I know we screwed up, but we need to get to him to apologize."

They finally made it to the holodeck and when they got there, it sounded, even though the privacy fields and insulation that it was doing it's level best to kill whoever was in there … and B'eth had a good idea who was in there, "Computer, who is in the holodeck and what program are they running?"

(Cadet Alexander Harris is currently in Holodeck 3 and Program 'Hell On Earth' is running. Warning, safety parameters have been overridden and lethality level has been set to 'Lethal'.) B'eth felt all of the blood run out of her face even as her warrior spirit growled in both pride and jealousy at the statement the computer had made.

"Shut the program down, Authorization Henson Alpha Six, Six, Seven Omicron."

(Unable to comply - Security Override access needed.)

"Security Override Henson Alpha Blue Delta Green."

"Security Override Kim Hector Red Omicron Gold."

(Unable to comply - Insufficient Security Override Access.)

"Security Override Janeway Kappa Red Omega Delta Green." B'eth jerked around to see one rather upset ADMIRAL Katherine Janeway, "And maybe one of you two can fill me in on why Xander is running a program at a level that even the most insane Marines stay away from?"

Security Override Access approved.) The noise ceased and the doors parted to reveal the inactive holodeck, but also the tattered form of one Alexander Harris … and he wasn't in what one could call a good mood - his hands and face were covered in blood, HIS blood, his clothes were torn and his body looked to have taken more than a few hits in the past few minutes that the holodeck had been trying to pound him into a red paste.

"Why. Did. You. Stop. It?" B'eth could see the effects of both rage and battle-madness in his mind, but also saw something that chilled her to her very soul - nothing. Deep within his eyes, where the soul normally rested, where the pride of the warrior burned, according to Klingon legend, B'eth saw nothing in her friend's eyes and for the first time in her life, she knew true fear.

"Xander, we need to apologize!" Wendy rushed forwards before anyone could stop her and in the blink of an eye she was back to front with Xander, his arms locked around her head in a classic chokehold that appeared to be working as advertised as Wendy's eyes bugged out and she clawed at his arms to get him to let go.

"Stop it, Xander! You're not there anymore!" Out of nowhere came a young man, dressed in a Starfleet Command uniform with an Ensign's pip on his collar, lashing out with a foot that connected into the small of Xander's back with a sickeningly deceptive force to cause Xander to let go of Wendy, "You're not there!"

Xander's only response was a pure snarl of fury that stoked B'eth's own Klingon fires - his mind was in a completely primal state the Klingon warriors often tried to achieve, but it was also very dangerous in that all thoughts of strategy and tactical planning left you. This was proven as a heavy stun blast caught Xander in the back and dropped him to the ground like a bag of rocks.

"What in the hell happened to him, Q?" Q? Is that who this twerp was?

"Aunt Kathy, believe it or not, the scenario he was running was built on old MEMORIES of Xander's by father - nobody was ever supposed to find it, let alone those Marines, and Xander was only allowed to use it to let off some steam or kill something." The person, Q, looked over at her, his eyes narrowing, "What did you do to him?"

(Later)

Her Starfleet career was probably over from the look on the Admiral's face and her life was also over from the look on Q's face - B'eth was sure of these even as Medical checked over Wendy and Xander, who was behind a level 10 Security Field, and she turned to the Admiral, "It was just a joke."

Before the Admiral could explode, though, the being, Q, beat her to it, "A JOKE? My brother may be a great many things, capable of many more things than your primitive mind is capable of, but a supposed 'joke' of this level is something that he would kill over. Do you even have the slightest CLUE how close you came to having him wipe out this pathetic mud ball humans call a planet?"

She blinked, "He's your brother?"

He glared at her, "Yes, you insignificant primate, he is - whether he knows it or not is none of your concern nor is it the point, but it was then and is now a very real concern as to if he could tap into his powers of a Q in his rage. What do humans do oh so well when they get angry?"

"Destroy … K'haless, he would have killed us all."

"Which is the reason father made this program for him specifically - if he has an outlet for his truly homicidal tendencies, then there is that much of a chance that he won't destroy things like this planet, the solar system, the entire human race, things like that." Q ran his hands through his hair and sighed, "It's a good thing I'm erasing your memories after this - I sure as hell don't want to have to explain this to him."

Wendy walked over, eyeing the cosmic being with some trepidation, "You're … not like most Q, that we've read about, I mean."

Q snorted, an indelicate sound, "No shit - I was made human for a month and sent to Earth to be taught how to BE human by another Alexander Harris, a doppelganger in another dimension of your Xander, actually, but he was in much worse shape than this one. I picked up more than a few bad human habits along the way, but being protective of my family happens to be one of the few things I did get right - this Xander Harris will wake up and remember nothing of what happens after leaving your room, as none of you will remember this little conversation, and all shall be serene and nice in the Universe for a short time."

B'eth growled, "What right do you have to erase our memories?"

"I am Q, child - I can do whatever I want because I am not forced to care about your petty feelings or sense of right and/or wrong." He snapped his fingers and B'eth felt a light touch on her mind, but shook it off as he smirked, "Now, who am I?"

She looked at his face, then at his rank, and thought hard and came up with nothing, "Do I know you?"

"No, B'eth, not yet," Admiral Janeway said to her as she walked over to where Xander was behind the security field. "Will he be well?"

"Eventually - it takes a great deal for him to work himself up into this kind of rage, but he always recovers, at least, he has in the past." B'eth watched as the unknown Ensign walked over to where Xander was laying and sighed, "He has a lot of baggage, Aunt Kathy, and most of it is from years of combat without so much as a brief respite - always something or other on his plate and never so much as a 'thank you' once it was dealt with." 'Aunt Kathy'? Were he and Admiral Janeway related?

"I'm having an old friend of B'elana's take him onboard his ship to flex his muscles a bit, put to good use some of that training he has - is that a good idea?"

"Yes - it will keep his hands busy, his mind on other things and it may just get him over this stupid prank of theirs." Those words cut B'eth deeper than she cared to admit - true, the joke had been meant in fun, but obviously it had done more harm than good, and she had hurt an ally of hers, a friend, which sullied her own honor.

"What hit me?" Xander's voice was rough as he came to in the security field, which prompted B'eth to rush to him and she knew Wendy was not far behind.

"Forgive me, my friend - it was a joke in poor taste."

Xander 

Xander, though many believed him unconscious, had heard all of Q2's rant and, while touched, knew that it was all an act - B'eth's, Wendy's and possibly Seven's and Harry's memories had been messed with, but his and Aunt Kathy's had not been, obviously. He waited for Q2 and Aunt Kathy to get over towards him before he groaned, "What hit me?"

He heard a stampede of two pairs of feet, if two pairs can be called a stampede, and heard B'eth plead, "Forgive me, my friend - it was a joke in poor taste."

In truth, it had been a joke in the most horrible taste, but he put on a confused face, "Joke? What joke? Where the hell am I?" Personally, he thought that the Class Ten Security Field he was behind was a bit much, but with what he had on him, he could get out of it in about ten minutes.

"You went on a minor psychotic break, Cadet Harris," Aunt Kathy stated gravely. "In the process you activated and survived a holodeck program that fully-trained Marines have a hard time surviving - do you care to tell me how you did that?"

"Luck? Skill? I'm not sure because I … I don't remember what you're talking about - the last thing I remember is walking into Wendy's and B'eth's room and Wendy telling me something that … I was upset, angry and then I wake up here." The half-Vulcan and the half-Klingon merely blinked in shock while he stood up to loosen the knot that had formed in the middle of his back, thinking they were off of the hook, but he then frowned, "Wait a second … I remember it was Wendy that told me that … something, and B'eth was laughing."

"It was a bad joke gone wrong, Xander," Wendy admitted meekly. He knew he shouldn't be taking any kind of pleasure from either her or B'eth's discomfort, but he did take a little in that his little go-round with 'Hell On Earth', which was actually a rip-off of the old PC game 'Doom', didn't help him work through.

"Whatever you said to me, don't do that again - I hate it when I get these memory lapses." He looked at the Admiral, who appeared to be rather calm, and turned on the puppy-dog eyes, "Can I get out of here now, Admiral?"

"After a little session with Starfleet's top psychologist - Commander Deanna Troi."

He winced, "Are you SURE you want to let someone in my head? I'm there all the time and trust me, it's not a pretty sight."

She smiled and he knew that this was a setup for somebody, but not for him, "That's the only way you're ever going to get out of the Security Field."

He made a farce of looking around, "A few curtains, a throw rug and a couple of pillows couldn't hurt."

"You're seeing the doctor, Cadet - that is an order."

Later that evening - Xander 

'I hate psychiatrists - they're too meddlesome,' was about all that was gong through Xander's mind even as he worked in his holodeck program, shaping the last of the obelisk to the way he wanted it - it would stand about six feet tall and have the names of the fallen on them, but also decorative cravings.

"Xander?" He jumped slightly, not having heard the doors to his sanctuary open and spun around to see Seven standing there, "Are you okay?"

"Don't scare me like that, Seven - I think I've been through enough for one day, don't you think? How'd you get in here without me knowing?"

"I've been here for over five minutes, calling your name and you didn't respond, and I take it you are starting to remember more about your … break." She walked forwards, out of her on-duty uniform and in her casual wear, "Do you wish to talk about it?"

"Not particularly - I don't want to give you nightmares." Soldier Boy had seen some heavy shit, and that little program had brought all of those old memories and night terrors back in full force, "I'll be fine, it's just going to take some time."

She nodded and then looked at the woodcarving, "Are these the names of your friends?"

"Yeah, something I've been working on in my spare time - what brings you here?"

She shrugged, "I came to see if you were okay, and now that I know that, I want to know if I can help." She idly picked up a small chisel and tested the edge with her thumb, "I have found recently that I like to work with my hands as a way of relaxing."

"I'm done with this part, now I get to try it in a soft stone, like limestone or sandstone - from there, I go to marble or granite." He called up an arch and began to tap away at what he wanted as far as raw materials went, and soon there was a rectangular piece of stone next to his bench, "Care to help?"

He and Seven spent the next hour and a half working on the stone, checking it without tools for cracks and possible defects before starting to rough out the shape of the obelisk - they chatted occasionally, asking how this and that was going in their respective lives, and he made a mental note to ask Harry why Seven blushed about her upcoming birthday. Eventually, too quickly in his opinion, his time in the holodeck came to a close and he saved their progress; they had worked up a good bead of sweat working in the enclosed area, itself a stone room and with only some ventilation, and he was a good kind of tired that came with physical work.

Seven groaned as they left the room, "That was exhilarating - I have never worked with stone before."

"Neither have I, outside of concrete - I hope we get better at it." They made their way to the cafeteria for dinner and neither were too pleased with the selection - Xander had, much to his distress, found that school food, regardless of time, space or dimension, let alone technology, was all the same in that it was strictly inedible half of the time and unrecognizable to the point tha one would refuse to eat it the other half of the time. It was there that B'elana, who had joined them after only a few minutes in the cafeteria, made her feelings of displeasure with the food known, joined them.

"I swear they took lessons from Neelix on how to screw up food." The 'food' in question looked like a gray mash of noodles and the occasional orange fleck that was supposed to be a carrot, next to a lump of meat that Xander thought was meat loaf, some vegetables and something that looked oddly enough like pumpkin pie and smelled like peach cobbler. B'elana took her fork and speared the closest piece of meat, which Xander swore he heard squeal in displeasure, and then brought it up to eye level, "Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?"

"None of the above - it is a new life form that is not only trying to take over Earth, it also infects all edible food with some sort of protein combination that makes it … displeasing to the eye." He looked over at Seven, who was doing much the same to her own piece of meatloaf, her eyes narrowed as the studied it, "Perhaps we could use this as an effective weapon against or enemies?"

"I think that falls under both cruel and unusual punishment, not to mention torture of enemy combatants and biological warfare." The three of them looked up to see Admiral Janeway, B'eth and Wendy standing there, all of them with trays in their hands, "May we join you?" With a nod of ascent, they did and Aunt Kathy prodded her own meat serving, "I wonder if this is punishment for something that we did wrong in our past lives?"

"Nah - they'd make us eat old MRE's for that." He stabbed a piece of his own meatloaf and, before he had the chance to talk himself out of it, ate it, chewing quickly as he did in hopes not tasting it; those hopes were dashed and he forced himself to swallow the revolting mass, "Gah, I think this IS an old MRE."

B'elana put her fork down and looked at him, "Xander, remember when I told you about my friend who needs some help in Engineering on her ship? I need an answer tonight if you want the spot."

He nodded, "Sure - where is it going and please tell me it's not a Klingon Cruiser."

"It's not a cruiser - it's a freighter and it's a motley crew as far as the people on board; Jennifer and I were in the Academy together and she was kicked out just before I left. She's an okay person and a great pilot, even if she's a little crazy."

"She's gotta be a better pilot than B'eth." The half-Klingon in question gave Wendy a wounded look for the muttered comment and both Seven and Aunt Kathy snickered at it, "Well, it's true!"

"When does she expect me? Or does she?"

B'elana smiled, "Oh, I expect she's already tapping her foot impatiently, but for your information, the day after Finals - you're going to be with her for the next month or so, enough time to pull off several runs, but that's about it. Try not to embarrass me, kid."

He took up a wounded pose, "Moi? Embarrass you? Perish the thought, though if she asks for any stories, I might have to tell her about the diaper incident a month ago." He'd had an early session in the holodeck that day and B'elana had shown up on time, though with a diaper stuck to her seat instead of her daughter's - thankfully, though, it was a clean one.

B'elana growled, "You wouldn't."

He merely grinned at her.

2 days later - post Finals 

"So, you passed?"

He gave Wendy a wounded look, "Was there any doubt?"

B'eth snorted even as he packed away the last of his clothes, "Of course there was doubt - if you did not pass, I would have gotten out of babysitting duties for the next semester, not that letting anyone who is any part Vulcan watch a developing child is a good thing. I swear B'elana's child is starting to arch her eyebrow at me and baby-speaks 'fascinating' when I am not looking."

"At least she behaves for you - last time I sat with her she wouldn't stay put for two seconds." He had gotten more exercise with the 18 month old in three hours then he normally did with his morning exercises - he'd almost kissed B'elana's and Tom's feet when they got back, as baby Parris had driven him to the bring.

He packed up his guitar and several pictures he had taken over the past semester - Wendy was much like Willow in her fear of frogs so he had asked B'eth to take a picture of him making frog noises next to Wendy as she slept, which had the half-Vulcan nearly jumping out of her bed when he let out a rather loud one with a rubber frog dropped on her chest. B'eth had, in turn, gotten tricked with a picture of her, asleep in her rack, cuddling her stuffed targ with her normally straight hair being frizzed out with little pink bows in it that Wendy had put in it. He, too, had not been immune to all of this (the pregnancy thing aside) - the pair had gotten Seven in on it too in not only getting the picture, but setting it up that his holodeck program for a simple spar was augmented to where he was fighting larger-than-life versions of green-spotted purple dinosaurs. Personally, he thought that Q2 had something to do with that, but had, at the time, laughed so hard it hurt and then raised a little hell on the dinosaurs, which was the subject of the photo. "Are you two going to be okay?"

Wendy nodded, smiling slightly, while B'eth pouted, "Yes, we will, but things are going to be so DULL on Vulcan - a warrior should be in action, not sitting on her backside waiting for something to happen."

He sighed; if anything, B'eth was even worse than Faith with her jitters when she got bored, "B'eth, don't go looking for trouble if you're going to be Starfleet - it will find you." He grabbed the bag, pushed the photos and some few things on top before closing it, "So, are you two going to stay out of trouble while I'm gone?"

Wendy arched a dark eyebrow, "Shouldn't we be asking you that?"

He shrugged, "Point - so, are you, because I will."

"We'll try."

He snorted, "No, do not try - do, or do not, there is no try." They both gave him an odd look and he sighed, "Old saying where I come from." They walked out of the room and towards the transporter pads, something he wasn't all too keen on - your body was broken down into energy, a whole bunch of ones and zeros, beamed along subspace to another transporter, turned back into energy and then put back together in all under five seconds. It was irrational, as transporter accidents were so low that it wasn't even funny, something like one in one hundred thousand, and even then it wasn't anything major, with one in five hundred thousand that was actually dangerous, but still, he liked all of his parts and pieces right where they were, thank you very much, and the fact that he was putting his life and limbs in the hands of someone else was quite unnerving. In minutes they ere at the starport and going to their respective ships - Wendy was the first to leave and after a tearfully long goodbye and promises of writing, she was on her way to Vulcan where B'eth would meet her later after visiting her uncle in the Dryad system. B'eth's own goodbye was short and sweet, but no less easy as she shot the occasional look over her shoulder, leaving him alone.

"Well, son, what do you think of school so far?" Okay, so not so alone.

"Not too bad, father - maybe I won't have to blow this one up too." He looked over at Q, who was smiling, "So, how're things?"

"Not bad - your mother, Q, is pregnant again, with a little girl this time."

Xander smiled, "Good. So, is there anything I need to know about with this trip, or is it just the routine stuff?"

"No, though I would ask you not to react when you see your new Captain and her First Officer. Either way, I am just here to see you off and wish you good luck on your new journey - I am sure it will be informative." With that, Q flashed away and Xander felt his stomach drop to the soles of his shoes - he was up to something and when that was a possibility, he generally kept himself either armed or heavily medicated.

Shaking it off, he went to where he was supposed to go and looked around for the docking berth - when he found it he was shocked to see perhaps the best ass he had ever been graced with seeing in a pair of leather pants, bending over to check something in a bag, which then straightened and showed that the person, a female, was wearing a vest over a sleeveless shirt, wore a belt on her waist that had numerous pouches and even a holster for a gun, her hair was dark and went down to her mid-back, and her skin was somewhat creamy. Next to her, dressed much the same, was another woman, though shorter with a bad bottle-job on her now-blonde locks, with creamy skin of a lighter nature and … they were both looking at him.

"Yes, may we help you?"

"Um, yeah, sorry - I was looking for berthing 64? I'm supposed to meet a Captain Jennifer Davis and her XO, Liz Craig?"

The dark-haired woman smiled, "You must be Xander, then - B'elana has told me a great deal about you. I am Captain Davis, but please, call me Jenny. This is Liz, my first officer."

"Hi-ya, Xand!" He blanched as his might caught up with his hormones with the name - he cropped the dark hair and put her in the skirt and he realized who he was looking at with the captain and the XO … Jenny Calendar and Buffy Summers. "I hope we become REAL good friends on this little voyage."

AN: Alright, here's a part of my new story – this is already written to the third chapter, so wait for it and they'll all be there. R&R, if you would.


	3. Chapter 4

Of Family And Q 2: Back To School

4?

AN: Yes, later on in this chapter, I am blatantly ignoring the fact that the UPN show, Enterprise, ever existed outside of a passing reference – they screwed with the timeline too much with the Temporal Cold War crap and the Xindi thing, so I'm forgetting it ever happened, mostly.

AN2: Now, we get to see a little of the hell that Alexander Q. Harris went through on Demons 6 – some of it may be a bit hairy, and you may ask the question of 'What in the hell does the Federation want with these jerks', but all of that will eventually be explained. Be warned, there is some heavy angst in some parts of this – what can I say, some people should learn to not ask the questions of you don't want the answers.

(Starfleet Medical – Psychiatric Ward – January 4)

Admiral Janeway looked at the containment field that held the cadet and sighed at the sight – her 'nephew', Alexander Harris, was crouched into the corner of his cell, looking haggard, his eyes closed, and his hands methodically signing, in battlefield signals, out old commands even as his mental readings went back and forth across the chart; she wasn't sure just what in the hell had happened while he was away on his 'learning trip' that B'elana had set up for him, but apparently there had been one hell of a fire fight and his mind had, for want of a better term, snapped. The doctors at Starfleet Medical had said that it was a case of Post Traumatic Stress merged with a serious case of shell shock, all of which had been masked by his rather easy-going and personable attitude – basically, he had been a ticking time bomb that had gone off somewhat quietly once but this time had gone off and taken most of an attacking ship's crew with it.

"Admiral." She turned and saw her old protégé, Seven of Nine … Lt. Anika Hensen … and her paramour, Lt. Harry Kim, and for her part, Seven didn't look like she had slept very well.

"Lieutenants. What brings you here?"

Anika looked at her and smiled sadly, "He is not only my personal assistant, but he is also my friend, Admiral. Do the doctors know what caused this … break?"

Katharine sighed and massaged her temples, "Too much combat as a child, not enough time to allow his mind to recover from the stress and then he's thrust into another combat situation – it was bound to happen, it was just a matter of when."

Seven winced and looked at Xander, her brow creasing, "'Flank left quadrant, cover fire diversion left battlement tower, keep fire, mask explosive placement.'"

Harry looked at his girlfriend – the mere thought of that made Katharine smile slightly, as she and Neelix had split the pool on just who was going to get together with Seven, eventually, "You understand that?"

"Yes – Xander once told me that, apparently, there are a great many similarities within the old Earth militaries and those of Demons 6, more importantly they adopted more than a little of old Earth military protocol to their own. Admiral, is he re-living one of his old missions?"

"Apparently he is – how long he will be like this is anyone's guess. Did either of you see him … weaken, if that's the term, at any time this past semester that would have suggested this?"

Seven frowned but Harry spoke up first, "Only after that 'trick' Wendy and B'eth played on him, the whole pregnancy thing."

Katharine frowned even as Seven walked up to the security field, "Seven, what are you doing?"

Seven didn't respond to her, only assuming a stern expression, "Soldier, report!"

The effects, as they say, were instantaneous – Xander shot to his feet, assuming a smart, crisp salute, a hybrid between a modern hold of attention and an old Legionnaire salute, where the fist was banged against the heart, his face set into a flat mask, his eyes a mystery, "Lieutenant – our mission was a success and all enemy combatants have been eliminated, save the scientists, at your request."

Seven narrowed her eyes slightly and, briefly, Katharine wondered if any of the Doctor's drama lessons were coming into play at this time, "Tell me, soldier, how do you feel?"

"I feel nothing that I am not ordered to feel, Lieutenant." The cold, dead tone with which those words were delivered sent shivers down Katharine's spine even as she saw Seven's hand clench behind her back, a sure sign that she, too, was agitated.

"Good – stand down and take a few hours of time for yourself." Seven stepped back and walked away, her mask of chilled indifference falling away even as Xander went to his bunk and promptly fell into it, passing out, "To answer your question, Admiral, I did some research on Demons 6 and found that their military hand signals not all that different from the ones once used on Earth some three to four centuries ago, hence how I was able to translate what he was 'saying'. Needless to say … this is troubling."

"Indeed it is." Katharine, Harry and Seven all jerked and turned as one to see Q standing in front of the security field, his face a mystery, "This … was never supposed to happen."

"Q, what are you doing here? Is this your doing?"

He turned and glared at her slightly, "I am here because I wish to be here, and yes, this is my doing, but only in part."

"And what did you do to him?"

Q gave Harry a look before sighing, "Very well, if you must know, I altered Xander's memories for him to more fit into his role here at the Academy and in Starfleet – he's a warrior, a solider, and quite frankly he's always been too cheerful for that role, hence his … inner darkness."

Katharine arched an eyebrow, "'Inner darkness', Q?"

"Yes – don't get me wrong, he is a very nice person, for a human being, but if riled … let's just say that not only is he capable of complete sadism on levels your puny minds aren't capable of comprehending, but also he's capable of just not caring." Katharine was about to say something to Q, but he went on, "But regardless, he was always doing what was best for his friends, whether they knew it or not."

This gave her pause for a few moments as she began to picture what Q was saying and to whom he was placing it to – she knew Xander was from another dimension all together, he had told her that much himself, but the fact that Q had begun to 'edit' his memories to fit this world … did that mean that he was turning Xander into who he claimed to be - a soldier from the hell hole known as Demons 6? As she thought, though, Seven spoke up.

"Why is it that you are taking such an interest in this human, Q? Aren't you supposed to be annoying Captain Picard?"

Q shot her a dark look, "If you must know, little Borg … he is my son." This shocked Seven and Harry into silence, but Q went on, "It was decided upon in the Continuum that Alexander's memories be augmented somewhat for him to fit more easily into his role in this world, as I stated before, but it goes far beyond that – his entire makeup, who he is, has been changed … and this is the result. In reality, though, I should not be surprised – he is, after all, only human."

"But," Harry interrupted, "you said he is your son. How does that make him 'only human'?"

"Because I have blocked him his access to his Q powers – for all intents and purposes, he is nothing more than a lowly little monkey with a hellish past." Q stepped back from the field and ran his hands through his hair with a sigh, "I know that he will survive this, as he's survived everything else in his life … but I can't explain this gnawing feeling I have right here," he pointed at his stomach, "that I can't seem to shake. I … I'm worried."

"He's your son – it is your duty to be worried." Seven stepped up to the security field once again and let her fingers grave the surface of it, "How could you do this to him, your own progeny?"

Q shot her another irritated look and, briefly, Katharine wandered if Seven was suicidal, "I am doing this to not only build his character, but to expand his mind, to broaden his horizons – a Q with a one-track mind is predictable, but a many-tracked Q's mind … that is a work of art." With that, Q flashed away and left the three of them alone in the room, a sudden beep making them realize that time had been stopped in Q's presence.

"Admiral, you don't appear to be surprised by this." Harry's tone was level, serious, and exactly what she expected of him, "Did you know about Xander?"

"Only in part, Harry – I knew he was Q's son, and he was here to learn about the universe from our point of view, but … I never guessed this would happen." Katharine looked on with the other two officers as Xander's body began to twitch as he began to dream … a dream that was more than likely a terror.

(Xander's Mind)

He looked around his mind, not for the first time, and noticed the numerous, but subtle, changes that had been made over the past few weeks – he had first seen them when 'the bad joke', as he liked to call it, went off and he figured that it was some kind of personality integration from his father, Q, to make him more at ease in the universe, but what it was in reality wasn't figured out until the dreams started. It was like Soldier Boy, all over again – places he had never been, combat he had never fought, people he had never killed, all assaulting his mind at one time and, had he been human, it would have overwhelmed him this time as it almost had last time.

Only he wasn't human – he was Q, and these trifling nightmares didn't have a hoot in hell of ever taking over his mind, "Well, this … is annoying."

"That is an understatement." He turned and saw his father's wife, his very-pregnant step-mother, standing there in Starfleet Command colors and wearing a somewhat pensive frown, "Tell me, Q … Alexander, exactly what is it that you gather from all of this is?"

"That the human mind is a fragile thing, even if said mind is that of a Q trapped in a human body?"

She smiled at his smart-assed remark, but said nothing, merely arching an eyebrow.

"That I need to be careful – you and the rest of the Q have seemingly altered my mind in a way that makes my cover story more believable. I can feel it now that I don't have my body's limited feelings in place – I am both Xander Harris of Sunnydale and Alexander Q. Harris of Demons 6, and apparently I'm now a few sandwiches shy of a picnic basket."

QF (Q-female) merely rolled her eyes, "Hardly – all of your 'sandwiches', as you so crudely put it, are still there, son, but all you have to do is not only find them, but keep them all in your 'basket'. Yes, we did this to you in order to make your cover story more believable as far too many are starting to suspect that you are a plant, outside of that mortal, Katherine, and the occasional psychotic break will keep you on the level."

"And out of the Marines, right?" He grinned at her blink of shock, "Oh, come on – it's transparent; sure, some of the best Marines that ever existed had a few screws loose upstairs, and those who did not were too damned stubborn to take 'no' or 'it cannot be done' as an acceptable answer, so if I'm seen as mentally unstable, I'm out of the Marines, permanently."

A slow grin crossed QF's face as she looked at him, seemingly, in a new light, "I see that there is some hope for you yet, son – obviously your life as a mortal hasn't completely eradicated your ability to think outside of the box." She looked around and frowned, "Now, we need to speak about several other things, mostly concerning how unorganized this place is – believe it or not, we Q are notoriously tidy beings."

Xander looked at her and blinked, "Are you telling me … to clean up my room?"

"Organize it would be more precise, but yes, I am – before we do that, though, you need to go back to your conscious self and take care of your 'mundane' problems, and when you go to 'sleep' tonight, we shall work on organizing your mind to something more of Q standards."

Before Xander could say anything, there was a flash of light and he was snapping upright in the bunk he had been in, behind a level ten security field, and groaned too quietly for anyone to hear, "I hate acting." With a grunt, he shoved off of the bunk he had been laying on and stretched out, groaning as he did, and yawning hugely before he stopped and looked at the assembled party of Katherine, Wendy, B'eth, and Commander Deana Troi-Riker, who happened to now run the psych department of Starfleet Medical, "Hi. What happened?"

Admiral Janeway walked up to the field, "Xander … what do you remember last?"

"Waking up on a very uncomfortable bunk behind a level 10 security field, again, in Starfleet Medical, again, and asking 'what happened', but if you mean before that, Admiral, not much right now." He shivered, though, "Really wish I could forget some of the things that're running though my head right now, too, but as that has a small chance of happening, I'm going to guess … psychotic episode?"

Commander Troi-Riker walked up to the field and frowned, "Alexander, you were brought here six days ago by the crew of the 'Lucky Dog' after an intense battle between your ship and pirates who managed to board the ship. From all accounts you apparently suffered some kind of regression …"

Xander nodded, "Let me guess – I killed everyone?"

Admiral Janeway shook her head, "No, just the pirates, Xander – can you remember anything that could help us with your treatments? What it was that set you off?"

Xander thought back to everything that had happened, "I remember the initial explosion of the breeching charges from the pirate ship – they came through, firing weapons of several types, old slug throwers and the odd energy weapon, mostly, and …" he shuddered as the memories assaulted him.

"Xander, I need you to tell me what happened."

When he opened his eyes, he wasn't sure what Katherine saw, but it made her almost shrink back, "The smells and sounds hit me, Admiral – I'm not sure what it was about them, but the smell of the brunt metal, the propellant used on the slug throwers and the smell coming from the dead bodies … I think that's what triggered it."

Commander Troi-Riker stepped up a little closer, "Alexander … you don't sound surprised."

He looked into her chocolate brown eyes and made sure that he had her undivided attention, "Commander, have you ever been in a war, smelled week-old dead bodies that have been exposed to the elements? Have you ever been covered in blood that wasn't yours and been able to smell nothing else? I have – I'm not sure that it is ever going to change, but certain smells … they trigger something in me."

"Could that be it, Commander?" Katherine turned to the empathic woman even as the memories assaulted him even more, speaking softly, "Could it just be sense-memory that triggered this episode?"

"It's possible," Troi-Riker conceded grudgingly, "but I will not allow this one to slide this time, Admiral. Cadet Harris will be in therapy this time, and undergoing a chemical therapy, if necessary – we'll work out the schedule, but it will happen, Admiral, and no amount of pressure from you or the Marine Commanders will make it otherwise."

"No drugs, Commander – I have enough problems, so remember when to take some meds would only compound them." Troi-Riker looked up at him as if to say 'you are giving me orders for what reason?', and he went on, "Please? I'd rather try and work through this without medications, if at all possible, Commander."

She narrowed her eyes slightly and then nodded, "Very well – therapy for now, but if I see the need for it, you will start a chemical regimen if I see fit."

"Thank you, Commander," Admiral Janeway said with a slight smile even as Wendy and B'eth both approached the force field. "Now, can we turn this shield off?"

"Not a chance, Admiral – we need to see just how far his problems go."

Wendy snorted at this, "Which problems, Commander? He has so many of them."

B'eth joined that snort as well, "And while most of them can be because he's a male, some of them cannot."

Commander Troi-Riker arched an eyebrow at the pair and grinned slightly as she looked at him, "And these are your friends, Cadet?"

Xander just shrugged, having heard those particular comments before from them, though in the respect of him being 'typically male', "Hey, with friends like this, I don't need to worry about getting a swelled head – they puncture and deflate my ego when I need it … and even when I don't." He caught the looks from both the Admiral and the Commander and he grinned, "Of course, I do the same to them all the time … though unlike me, their bodies and egos generally keep themselves in check."

Wendy, of course, snorted at this, "Prove it."

Xander smiled as he thought back to the previous semester, "Last semester, leaving our building, you proved that, through slipping on the top step, Vulcans can fly, but their landings are a bit rough."

"Especially when they land on their backsides," B'eth chipped in helpfully, gaining a glare from Wendy. Xander grinned at that memory, knowing that he, nor any member of his race, had not a thing to do with that particular event, hence why it was so funny – of course, Wendy had admitted to them that she was also a bit of a klutz, so it couldn't be laughed at too much.

Said Vulcan stuck her slightly-green tongue out at B'eth, "Oh, really? And let's see, who was it that took out one of Boothby's petunia beds with her rather skilled lack of grace while trying to merely walk down the sidewalk?" Xander winced at that particular memory, knowing that, once again, he nor any of the Q had a hand in that particular disaster – Boothby had been absolutely livid about it and had made B'eth replant all of the petunias in said bed, an act that B'eth had hated because she was allergic to the petunia pollen.

Even as the half-Vulcan and the half-Klingon women bickered back and forth, Commander Troi-Riker looked at him and then at the Admiral, "Perhaps a group session could be arranged as well, Admiral – they're all quite mad."

"Welcome to my world, Commander," Katherine bemoaned playfully as he stuck his tongue out at her.

(End of Week 17 of school year - Saturday)

Xander groaned out slightly as he pushed out yet another weight-assisted pushup for his morning physical workout even as the weight he had borrowed yawned her own slight protest at having been woken up for such a menial task – B'eth, Xander had found, weighed more than Wendy did, so he merely used her by having her sitting on his back while he did reps, working not only his human muscles, but also his miniscule Q-power allotments in that he was having to ration out every erg of energy precisely to do the tasks that he wanted to do; he'd found out quite by accident that he now had access to a very tiny portion of what he was capable of when he had, in a fit of rage while trying to get a holographic plasma stream conduit to align properly, inadvertently not only made the alignment quite perfect, but also the hologram. He'd felt absolutely drained after that and had, once his little brother had explained it to him (and replaced the real plasma unit with another holographic one and altered the sensor logs of the training holodeck), taken to learning how to properly ration out his allotment of power so that not a 'drop' was wasted, hence his doing B'eth-weighted pushups. So far, he was able to do fifty with her on his back, seventy with Wendy, and ten with the both of them … and those totals were going up every day as he learned how to squeeze out that much more action out of every bit of his energy.

His door soon opened and Wendy walked in, tired from pulling an all-nighter in studying, regardless of the fact that it was Saturday and there was fun to be had, before taking her position next to B'eth and yawning, yet again, "Morning."

"Mor'ring," he grunted out as she settled into place. "How was studying?"

He felt her shrug even as he tried to redistribute his power to his protesting muscles, balancing himself again, "Not bad – Xenobiology is a pain in my tuckus."

B'eth snorted slightly above him as he pressed out one double-weighted pushup, "Use words that make sense, Wendy – 'tuckus' is not a word, even my spell-checker says so."

Xander shook his head as he felt the strain start to get to him, "No arguing this early, please? I've got a shrink-session this afternoon and I'm not looking forwards to it."

Both women were silent even as he pushed out five, ten and then fifteen more pushups without too much trouble, but he fought for every one after that point – the revelations that had been made about his past over the past week from their digging and his answers (though however reluctant) had placed a large strain on their friendship, namely because they realized just how much of his fictional past he was really hiding from them and how it had truly effected him. B'eth had started to look at him rather oddly, as if she was sizing him up to either take a swing at or to jump his bones (he was never sure which), while Wendy was always a little apprehensive around him, especially when he ghosted up behind them and spooked the both of them – she made this adorable little squeaking noise that was so very un-Vulcan that he couldn't help but laugh even as he and B'eth were scolded for said actions. There was one rule, though – when he told them 'no', that he would not answer a question or a probing comment, then that was it, no more begging, whining, wheedling or griping about his holding back answers, namely because there were several incidents where those memories sickened even him, regardless of some of the hellish things he had seen on the Hellmouth.

Five minutes later he reached his new personal best of twenty-one dual-weighted pushups and both girls got off of his back while he took a quick sonic shower and dressed down for the day – they had breakfast to get to, and then a cram session for their mutually-shared Federation History class, something that often bored him to tears. Often, it was he who complained why they needed to know who Christopher Pike was, or what race that James T. Kirk and his Enterprise met on this planet or that – none of it really mattered in his mind, regardless of the fact that it was a core class that ALL students had to take, regardless of how boring and dry the first 75 years of the Federation really was (though there were some tantalizingly juicy bits here and there that were never really expounded on, like the NX-01 'Enterprise', the first Warp 5-capable ship, captained by Jonathan Archer).

After breakfast and a quick jaunt to the library to download things of importance from the Academy Archives, the trio found themselves sitting out in a small patch of grass that was drenched in the sunny light that often found its way down on the area, despite the fact that it was January. They quietly studied together for nearly twenty minutes before Wendy sighed and put her PADD down, "Xander, we need to talk." He looked up at her, remembering the last time she said those words and she growled, "No, I'm not pregnant. It's … this thing you didn't tell us about – why?"

He arched an eyebrow at her, "Why what? About what, actually, would be a more appropriate question."

"About your past," B'eth groused slightly, not looking up from her PADD. "If it was bothering you that much, you could have told us."

Xander snorted at this, "And tell you what, precisely? That what you and Wendy and everyone who has access to my file are reading a sanitized version of what I've done in my life? That the numbers are probably low-balled for the sake of people not shooting me on sight? Oh or should I have told you about that my memory won't let me forget the faces of the non-combatants that got killed as well?" THOSE memories had kept him up at night several times, regardless of the fact that he didn't need sleep – he actually hadn't eaten for an entire day because his stomach couldn't hold anything down with those memories in his mind all of the time, that is, until he realized that none of it had ever happened, much as it had been with Soldier Boy. "Would have telling you that made any of what I'm going through potentially not happen? Or would it have hastened it's happening? Tell me that, if you please – I'm dying for the answer, here."

Wendy and B'eth were silent for a while, as if thinking everything he had said over, and when they finally snapped out of whatever trance they were in, neither of them looked happy as Wendy spoke, "You're right, Xander – it would have changed a few things."

"We may not even be friends, had you told us this," B'eth chipped in seriously, "but the fact remains that you didn't trust us with your secrets."

He narrowed his eyes, "B'eth, Wendy … I don't trust anyone with ALL of my secrets – it's too dangerous."

Wendy nodded stiffly, "Alright, I can accept that – why not?"

Xander didn't miss a beat, "There is an old Earth saying, Wendy, 'The truth can set you free,' but it's a lie – the Truth can and will get you killed … or me and you. I've done a lot of things, girls, a lot of things I'll never forget even if I wanted to, but if you two got hurt because of something I did back then …" Xander didn't … couldn't… finish the sentence as images of their mangled and mutilated corpses filled his mind, their bodies defiled in ways that made him want to throw up immediately.

B'eth sat forwards, her dark eyes shining slightly as the wind stirred her long hair and the sun made her ridged forehead more pronounced, "Xander, isn't that our decision to make, whether or not to risk knowing?"

"They have a point, you know," his father chipped in, fazed out of time and standing directly behind Wendy. "Much as your own Buffy and Willow did in your past, you cannot make their decisions for them – we Q are a great many things, but we try not to be hypocrites."

Xander did not answer his father, but rather answered B'eth, "Yes, it is, but it's also my decision whether or not to tell you the truth you want so much to hear … and right now I choose to not make that decision. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a session with the shrink and then I'm going to go get properly sick." Without waiting for them say anything, Xander got up and walked away at a brisk clip towards the psychiatrist's office.

Of course, his father didn't let him get away that easily, nor without the final word, "Son, I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but as Q, you can never tell everyone everything – the minds of these poor primates simply cannot comprehend the forces or the intricacies of what it is to be Q, let alone most of what your background REALLY entails. Remember this, that a Q with a moral code is a good thing, but a Q with too strict of a moral code is often found inside of some scientist's lab, trapped by their own foolish pride and those very same morals." With that, his father went away in a flash of light and Xander sighed – it was at times like this he was half tempted to tell the psychiatrist everything and let the poor bastard try and analyze that (or be sent into a padded cell himself), but he knew it would never be that easy, so he merely sucked it up and soldiered on … just like he always had.

(Later that evening)

He studied his PADDs while she watched him with the intensity that a bird of prey watched it's next meal, waiting for him to make the one mistake that she knew that all cadets in the engineering program made (namely because she made them herself) – EPS conduits could only do so much in a normal lifespan, so there were times that they had to be overhauled and replaced, so they were currently running a simulation where Xander was having to blindly shut the system off, check it over and then replace the unit without getting himself 'killed', and he was about two seconds away from doing it, "Careful, Cadet – are you sure you want to pull that?"

Xander ignored her pointedly as he had done so often that day, reaching in and pulling several isolinear chips from their ports and sliding them into others that would shut the system and flow of power off, but not bleed the system. B'elana said nothing as he failed to notice his mistake and began to dismantle the unit, causing an eruption of holographic gasses, fire and shrapnel, which was quickly followed by a vast array of his own rather vast array of curse words.

As the program reset itself, B'elana smiled tightly, "Xander, you need to loosen up – everyone gets this wrong, even I did, and I'm sure that last one isn't possible for anyone but the Sulaban."

He shot her a rather heated glare, "I never said the person would live, Lt. Commander Torres."

This made B'elana arch an eyebrow, "Alright, Xander, what's eating you? You've been acting like Admiral Janeway without her morning pot of coffee all session and it's starting to get on my nerves."

He was quiet for a moment, but he then spoke rather disgustedly, "B'eth and Wendy wanted to know why I never told them about what I was going through, and they seem to think that they're entitled to my deepest, darkest secrets just because they happen to be my friends."

She arched an eyebrow at this, "Oh, really? My, how absurd of them, wanting to know about a friend who is hurting and won't tell them. The NERVE!" Her not-so-gentle chiding and sarcasm didn't go unnoticed by her charge even as he looked up at her and arched his own eyebrow at her, "Xander, they want to help you."

He just snorted, "Ma'am, you can't help someone who can't be helped – I can get through this, it just takes time … just like last time."

She recognized the tactics he was using to get her to leave him alone, but what he didn't know was that she had helped perfect those same tactics a long time ago, "Really? Alright, we won' talk about it anymore." He shot her a look that clearly asked 'what are you up to' and she went on with a serious look, "What happened, then? On the ship, when you lost it?"

He looked at the covered EPS conduit in front of him, the program waiting for him to start, "You read the report."

"Yes, I did, but I want to hear it from you – what was it that set you off?"

He was quiet, again, for several minutes as he took the panel off and began to work back through the program, until he broke his silence, his voice thick with emotion as his hands flew through the process, "The pirates breeched the loading hatch with a set of charges that not only blew everything to hell and back, but it melted the deuterium lining of the doors. The smell … the explosion, the sounds of the fighting, I guess it all hit me at once and … I was there, all over again. The fighting, the dying, all of it … and I went back to that place I always went when I was on a mission." He went quiet again as he switched out the chips and depressurized the plasma conduit before going on, his voice now hollow, a shell of it's former self, "I don't remember anything when I go there, not immediately, but over time … it comes back."

"How bad was it?"

"Have you ever seen someone bleed to death from having their arms physically ripped off of their bodies? Trust me, it isn't pretty, ma'am." He pulled the conduit off of the 'wall' and put it aside, piercing her with a haunted look, "They gave us this stuff that made us feel invincible, made us stronger, faster, more aggressive and we took it like good little soldiers because we were ordered to – the first time I used it against someone, he stood there like a statue as the blood gushed out of his shoulders … until I shut him up by hitting him with one of his arms so hard it snapped his neck." B'elana blanched at the mental image that her mind provided for her as the sequence of events played out, Xander not stopping as he began to run tests and scans on the conduit, "The cocktail of drugs and endorphins didn't hurt us permanently, it and the after-battle drugs they gave everyone just put us into a … controllable state for a few days as they weaned us off of it, but it didn't stop the memories from coming back."

"How did you deal with this in the past?"

"We learned to repress it until we needed a little bit of extra energy, so we let that anger, that emotion just sit there and fester for a while until we were in a fight. It worked fine, actually … until the war ended. All of a sudden, peace reigned to the point that the nominal militias didn't need us anymore, and our little unit was … lost – most of us, we'd served with distinction for nearly 3 years, and all of a sudden we weren't needed anymore, so we were packed away into little places. Me, being the youngest, I was 'encouraged' to forget what I knew with some kind of hypnotherapy that blocked out most of my memories and training until a few weeks after I started here at Starfleet, and now that it's all coming undone, I'm starting to crack, show signs of use."

"Which is why you were dropped from the Marine Candidate list, right?" B'elana remembered just how relieved Admiral Janeway had looked at that particular bit of news, and how relaxed Seven … Anika… had been when she found that Xander was still going to be an engineer, just not a combat engineer. The Marine commandant, though, was filing an appeal to the Administration of Starfleet to 'give him his boy back', but things did not look too good for the commandant.

Xander snorted at this as he reached into his tool kit and began to repair micro-fractures in the conduit, "One of the reasons, actually – Marines all have a few screws loose, but I only have a few tight. That's a problem, apparently."

Silence reigned for the rest of the session as Xander finished his repairs to the EPS conduit and actually rated a whole 91 percent completion ratio – he was more than a little hacked off about the computer's grading of his 'insufficient response time', as he had been talking with her instead of focusing on the problem, which, B'elana had to admit, was a potentially fatal error in that someone could miss something if they weren't paying attention, but Xander still griped about it all the same as they left the holodeck and went towards her and Tom's home. Her husband had promised her a quiet night without Miral and, apparently, had bribed Xander into watching her daughter with an advanced copy of his newest holonovel. Surprisingly enough, Miral loved Xander almost as much as she loved Harry and Anika, often calling him 'X'nder' – he was good with her daughter, keeping an eye on her and making sure she never got into too much trouble, but often she wondered just how much he was rubbing off on her daughter after, one day, she had caught her baby arguing with the replicator for something called a 'Twinkie'. She had asked Xander about this and he had given her the most innocent 'who, me?' look she had seen since Tom and Harry had both pulled a prank on her on Voyager, making her sonic shower spit out Neelix's Leeola root soup, a smell that had stayed in her hair and skin for DAYS.

"Now, Miral, are you going to be good for Xander?" She watched Tom fit her daughter's knit hat over her curly dark hair even as Miral did her best to divest herself of the same hat.

"'Course will," Miral responded in broken speech. She was picking up words left, right and center these days, so B'elana was often checking her language at the door when she got home, especially after Miral had uttered several Klingon phrases that could make grown warriors blush. With that done, though, Miral hugged Tom, scampered over and hugged her legs and then made a mad dash for Xander, who's mood had completely reverse as he reached down and pulled the hat off of her head, handing it to her.

"Ready, squirt?" Miral smiled happily at him as he picked her up and turned towards them, "Have fun, you two – Tom, don't make her mad, B'elana, don't gut Tom because blood's still a pain to get out of carpet." She shot him a glare as Tom choked on something, to which Xander looked at her innocently, "What?"

"I would NOT gut my husband, Xander – shoot him, yes, space him out of an airlock, probably, but never gut him." Xander grinned at her even as Tom gave her a sick look and Miral giggled, "Now, Miral, are you going to be good for Xander?"

"Yup, pwomice!" She smiled at her daughter again, who at only 20 months old was showing signs of being a genius, "You n' daddy no naughty, k?"

Xander coughed slightly even as Tom blushed as red as his Command tunic had once been, "Uh, yeah, what she said … and now I'm going to go gouge my eyes out at that mental image. See you two later." With that, Xander led their daughter out of their quarters and left them alone, at which point she turned to Tom and growled playfully.

Tom gulped and began to back away as she walked towards him.

(Xander's Room – Later)

She watched him as he poured over his PADD, muttering the odd colorful word that her ears were not sharp enough to pick up fully, bus after being around her mother for so long, Miral knew that it was a naughty word and she wasn't supposed to repeat it. Still, aside form the occasional swear word and his uncanny ability to keep her from getting into trouble, Miral thought that Xander was a good guy, even though she couldn't pronounce his name yet – stupid verbal skills.

She reached for the PADD that was just out of reach above her on the lower bunk of Xander's shared bed and just as she was about to grab ahold of it, she heard the voice she was hoping not to hear, "Don't even think about it, Miral." She was amazed that he wasn't even looking at her and, somehow, he knew what she was doing … just like her mother did.

She sat on the floor, playing with the Flautter that her Uncle Harry and Aunt Seven had given her a few months before and she scrunched her nose up at it even a she waved the arms back and forth – it was as ugly as a targ and not as cuddly, but her two favorite people outside of her mom and dad had given it to her, so she kept playing with it. After a few minutes, though, she put the stuffed doll down and tottled over to Xander and tugged on his pant's leg, indicating that she wanted up, and he obliged, sitting her on his lap as he did, allowing her to snuggle into his chest – both Wendy and B'eth were doo-doo heads for not taking Xander while they could, so that meant that he was still open for her, eventually.

"Don't even think it, Miral," Xander said from above her, causing her to look up and see him smile. Had he been reading her thoughts? "Yes, I was, Miral – I'm good at that."

She blinked at that, but then looked into his eyes, "X'nder smart."

He grinned at her, "Maybe."

"St'wrong."

"Possible."

She frowned, "Hu-urt."

He looked down at her, arching an eyebrow, "Yeah, I do."

She scrunched up her nose and sneezed, "Q."

He jerked at that, looking around, "Where? How did you know …?" She looked at him oddly as he did the same to her, "Bless you, then."

She smiled at him and went about her business of getting off of his lap and going back to play with Flauter.

Xander, for his part, looked at Miral as if she had just accused him of being the second gunman on the grassy knoll – he knew she was a lot smarter than he was by general rites of knowing the era better than he did and parentage, but he was also sure that her little sneezed word wasn't a coincidence. Idly, he wondered if his family had done something about it, but he hadn't sensed any of them …

His door buzzed, "Come in." He smiled both Harry and Seven walked into the room, Miral squealing and dashing over to Harry and putting a strangle hold on his leg for several moments before doing the same to Seven, "Hi, Lieutenants – how ya doin'?"

Seven looked at him oddly as Miral let her go and went to go play with Harry, who was nudging Flauter with his foot, "We are well, Xander – how are you?"

He could read as far into her question as he wanted, more so, actually, and he shrugged, "I'm dealing, Lt. Hensen – no more, no less."

She arched an eyebrow at him, "What have I told you about calling me that?"

He sighed, "Never use your rank or your real names when superior officers are not present, right, Seven?" She smiled and nodded, so he went on, "So, what brings you here?"

"B'elana wants us to keep Miral for the rest of the night while you go over some things she left you in your files," Harry chipped in as he was 'tackled' by Miral and Flauter, "but as we're already here, Seven thought she could help you out with some of it."

He nodded to the blonde woman, who nodded back, and accessed his file account, pulling out the things that B'elana had put there, "So, how's the job?"

Seven just shrugged over his shoulder, she and Harry both still dressed in their uniforms, "Not bad at all, Xander, and we need to talk."

He sighed, "That's not the first time I've heard that today." He saved the files to his PADD and got up, looking at Miral, "Miral, are you going to mind Harry?"

"Pwomice!" He was almost ready to believe her until he saw a slightly mischievous glint in her eyes – he didn't feel sorry for Harry for a second as he and Seven walked out of his room and went to a common area, choosing a secluded area to speak in.

Once they were seated, Seven started, "Wendy and B'eth are both very worried about you, Xander, and most upset with you for lying to them." He arched an eyebrow at her but said nothing, so she went on, "Apparently you have not told them of your past, any of it."

"Incorrect – I told them what I thought they needed to know, which wasn't much at all."

She nodded at this and, after looking around and seeing that nobody was around to eavesdrop, she leaned in, "And you most certainly have not told them that you are Q's son."

If she was looking to surprise him, she was going to have to live without it as he didn't even blink at it, "Who told you? Admiral Janeway?"

"Your father, actually."

"Well, I'm not in a lab somewhere, so obviously you haven't told anybody – why not? It'd make your career, easily."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "I would never … rat out, as you would say, a friend. Believe it or not, Xander, I do not care if you are what you are – aside from it being a learning experience for us, how exactly would we … test you? You could easily escape, after all."

"Most likely I could. So, what now?"

Obviously not in the mood for small talk, she sighed, "I'm not sure. I could easily tell Wendy and B'eth this, but in doing so I would invalidate your trust in me, and this leaves me in a peculiar position in that all three of you … have become my friends. I do not wish to violate that friendship, as I have so few."

Xander found himself sitting back at that – she had professed her friendship to him several times before, but it wasn't until this moment that he realized just how seriously she took that claim, and just how jaded he was in thinking that she would betray him at any point to anyone. He took a breath and sighed out, "I thank you for your candor, Seven – as you already know some of my story, you might as well know the other highlights, so ask away."

"How long have you really been Q? Your father … was less than clear on that point."

Xander smirked at that, "A little less than seven months, actually – I'm 23 years old and spent the first 22 and a half of it as a mortal on Earth, another Earth, actually, in another dimension, without any powers whatsoever."

She blinked at this, several times, in fact, until she narrowed her eyes, "So … you are older?"

He nodded, "Yup, dad regressed me a few years to fit in around here, and my step-mother gave me my eye back."

Seven's eyebrow shot up at this point, as if to demand more on that last point.

He sighed and went about telling her about Sunnydale, his past life as a Scooby and what they hunted, which had gotten the question of what a 'demon' was and thus he went off on Giles' spiel of 'the world is older than you know it', only modified slightly to where it was meant for the other Earth, not the Earth they were on. Slayers, Potentials, Witches, magic, all of it was touched on and while none of it was actually viable in their current dimension, Seven asked for some more detailed descriptions from him at a later date.

"Fine, but be warned, I'm a carpenter, not a word-smith." He stopped and thought back at that last line, smiling slightly at the innate humor in it from his point of view.

"What is so funny?"

"Remind me to tell you about some of the television shows from my world, one time, Seven. So, anything else?"

She nodded, "Will you tell Wendy and B'eth this?"

He nodded slowly, "Yes, eventually – first, though, they need to learn that not everyone is what they appear to be, and in my case, that's a lot to take in."

"You lied to them, Xander, on several small points and one enormous point."

Xander shook his head sadly, "No, Seven, I didn't lie to them, I just didn't tell them the entire truth – there's a difference."

"Not from where I am sitting," she fired back with only a little heat.

"True, but you are not the same as my son and myself, little Borg," his father chipped in as he flashed into the empty common room. Q turned and smiled at him, "Very good on your explanations, son, and even better at stopping time – quite masterful."

Xander blinked at this and looked around for several seconds before he saw what his father was talking about – outside of the common room window bank was a large hedge that was in mid-sway from a stiff breeze, and was not moving at all in the opposite direction, "Wow."

"Indeed, son. When I leave, though, I'll set time back into motion, appropriately." With that, Q left and Xander felt time, which had been slowed to a stop, pick up again normally.

Neither he nor Seven said anything for several minutes until she managed, "That … was odd."

"You're telling me – I didn't even realize that I'd done that." He scrubbed his hands over his face slightly and groaned, "And this is why I'm here, Seven, to learn."

She nodded, "I see – when are you leaving?"

He shrugged, "Not sure – I may have to go from time to time, but I intend to have at least a full career out of Star Fleet before getting down to the hard stuff of my training. After all, I can't learn everything there is to know about this universe in only four years, right?"

She nodded at this slightly, her mind obviously on other things, "Xander … I may have an idea that will help you in your studies, if you are willing to partake in it. I fear, however, I do not have the details worked out completely, yet."

He shrugged and got up, "Cool – I'm willing to listen." He stretched out slightly, "So, I'll start on that history you wanted and you get on that idea, okay?"

She nodded and stood up, "Very well." They walked back to his room and, when the door was opened, were greeted with the sight of Harry, on his back, with Miral standing on his chest, his saxophone pointed at his chest as he 'twitched' in 'death'.

"I sway dwagon!"

Seven snorted slightly, "No, Miral – you slew an acting ham."

Miral smiled, Harry snorted and Xander grinned.

(Week 23 – Monday night, Gym)

It had been six weeks since his 'minor' blow up with Wendy and B'eth and while neither of them were exactly casting lots to see who would get to gut him, they were not exactly being overly friendly with him, not that he expected them to – he had basically destroyed the entire foundation that their friendship had been built on and, though it had taken a month for them to even talk to him again, now that base was being slowly rebuilt.

His classes were going well, Seven was cooking up some kind of idea that she refused to tell him about, regardless of how much he and Miral used the 'Puppy dog eyes' on her, his refinement of his powers were slightly stalled in that he had stopped growing more powerful and could not think of other ways to get more than fifty pounds of horse crap into a 2 pound bag, and on this night, he couldn't sleep. He'd taken up going to the gym in order to supplement his patrolling and his combat training, but he could still feel a little restlessness that came from the lack of a real fight for his life, regardless of what the holodecks could simulate, hence he was taking his aggressions out on punching bags and running, which he was currently doing at a 6-minute pace.

In the past six weeks he'd gone from simple repairs to more complex things in his engineering courses, like modifying and upgrading old systems, replacing damaged ones and learning to diagnose things from an educated standpoint, but was also branching out from power-delivery systems to more mundane systems, like gravity generators and environmental systems, both of which were far more twitchy than other things. At first he had somewhat scoffed at the idea, but when, in a simulation, he had lost gravity control and spent nearly ten minutes spinning end-for-end, not to mention seven minutes before and after of losing his lunch, his tune quickly changed and he took it very seriously as well. B'elana wasn't letting things slip any, in fact she had almost doubled his workload in some areas and, while not quite human anymore, Xander was starting to feel the pressure … and he liked it – his father, brother and step-mother all dropped in on occasion and checked in on him, but he'd gotten from his brother that Q often liked solving problems not only because they could, but because they wanted to see the end results.

Admiral Janeway had also helped him lay out a class schedule for the next year, one in which he would not only take his Aikido classes, but start his requirements for the now-mandatory piloting skills (on a scale of one to five, five being a starship pilot and one being able to not get himself killed in a shuttlecraft, Xander had to have at least a level two proficiency) and his also-mandatory cross-training. During the Dominion and Borg wars, there had been several instances where there had been adequate personnel to perform certain necessary functions on a starship or a space station, but none had been properly cross-trained, hence the new rules in Starfleet Academy that a certain number of crewmen and women had to be able to act as nurses or field medics, and others to know how to operate command consoles, hence his series of training courses, though what they were going to be was still a mystery to him.

He was starting to feel a touch winded as he hit his third mile but said nothing as he zoned everything and everyone out and focuses on the display in front of him – he wanted to make it to four miles before he stopped, a respectable distance as far as running went, when he felt a presence not a few feet off to his side. He looked over and saw a group of about a dozen people, men, women, human and alien, standing there, dressed in Marine Cadet-issue grey, and all of them were staring at him in facial expressions ranging from faintly amused, to curious, to pure contempt as the lead guy, who wore the pips of a Senior, looked down his long, angular nose at Xander. This went on for about ten seconds before Xander puffed out, "Yes?"

"You're Harris, right?" The tall, fit male, with right red hair and jade green eyes, almost spat out, something that several of the others winced at for some reason or another.

Xander didn't even spare him a look, "If I am?"

"Heard that you were dropped from the Marine cadet program and I wanted to know if that was true." The reply was prompt, crisp and completely lacking in anything close to true curiosity, but in the place of said curiosity was nothing more than simple annoyance.

Xander just shrugged as his approached the half-mile mark of his current, and final, mile, "And if it is?" He REALLY wanted to finish his run without any interruptions, he really did, but this guy gave off the same vibes that he got off of his roommate, Richard, ones that said 'I am better than you' and 'you are not worthy to be in my presence', both of which, as a mortal, had pissed Xander off and, as Q, infuriated him even more. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Call me David, and I wanted to know why you were dropped. Not good enough?"

Xander shot him an irritated glare that made two or three of his cadre back up slightly, "Too good, huff in some minds. Mentally huff unstable, huff in others – happy?"

David's hand flashed out and tripped the 'Stop' command on the treadmill console, bringing the machine to a stop; once it did he glanced up, "Thank you – your meager performance was beginning to annoy me."

Xander took a few deep breaths and slowed his racing heart, doing his best to keep his temper in check, as he was already in enough trouble with the Brass, not wanting to get into more, "And you are beginning to annoy me with your attitude, David – in case you didn't notice it, I was running and now I have to start all over again."

"Awww, poor widdle savage," David mock-crooned as several more of the survival-minded cadets backed up. He then snorted, "Personally, you don't look like much – our Drill Instructor and his Commanding Officer both seem to think that you're the second coming of something, but all I see is some pathetic little boy who is out of shape."

Xander gritted his teeth together, valiantly trying to keep his temper in check but he could feel that fight was a losing one, "Look, I don't want to start a fight here, David, but you're about two seconds away from getting an ass-beating – don't push it."

David smirked at him again and lashed out with a left kick that was easily blocked, and then a right knee that was meant to end his own reproductive abilities. Xander deflected this strike and pushed the Cadet back into the now-empty space that had once been inhabited by the other Marine cadets, shaking his head, "Don't do this, man. It's not going to end well."

David growled and he started to lash out with an eye-gouging left thumb that invoked all sorts of memories for Xander – Caleb, the First, General Disaster, Anya's death, the loss of his own eye, and the near-destruction of Sunnydale. All of this happened in a split second and it opened up an entire wellspring of anger as the gouge was launched at a speed that, for a normal human, was fast, but to someone who had been fighting both vampires and wars for the past three and a half to seven years, depending on which life you went by, it was a lazy punch that was both easily dodged and caught. David tried to pull his fist back but found that it wasn't going anywhere until Xander let go of his rather tense grip, "What …? Let me go."

Xander wasn't sure what happened next, but in the space of about four seconds he rushed forwards and then proceeded to hear a wet, meaty SMACK, quickly followed by a muffled CRACK, and then the sounds of Rice Crispies, SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP, before the room blurred and the sound of a body being forcibly driven into the padded floor of the gym, not to mention a muffled and agonized howl of pain. When his vision cleared, David was on the ground, face first, his arm twisted back and around in a position that was not physically possible without dislocating several joints, and was now out cold while his wrist, which didn't feel that solid at that point, was still gripped in Xander's hand.

The room was dead silent as he let the unconscious cadet's arm go and turned to a tall, for an Andorian, male, who had a somewhat proud smile on his blue lips, and Xander snapped out, "When he wakes up, tell him that he's alive only because I don't like being in the brig any more than I have to. Got it?"

"I'll tell him that myself, son." Xander turned around and saw, after looking down about a head or so, a balding man built like a fireplug and about a thick as a dwarf from those D&D books he'd lifted from Andrew a while back. He was dressed in the same grey outfit that the other cadets were in, but on his collar he wore three marks and had several other badges and ribbons here and there, and he was now looking from Xander to David's form on the ground, "Nice takedown."

"No, it wasn't," Xander automatically replied, his mind catching up to him slowly.

The man looked at him oddly, "Why's that?"

Xander sighed, feeling more than a little unhappy about himself at that point, "He's still breathing."

The man shrugged, "True, but that means that you may get out of the brig sometime soon, if you started it. You're Alexander Harris."

"And you are?"

The man drew up slightly, and if he was taller than Buffy, Xander would eat his PADD, "Drill Instructor Reyes, of the Marine cadet school."

"For the record," Xander stated as several Security personnel stormed into the room, "he started it."

DI Reyes nodded, somewhat disgustedly, "Yeah, David always had been a bit of a troublemaker – if he learns how to control his ego, he'll be a great Marine one day."

"And make sure he knows that if he pulls some shit like this on the field of battle, he's going to be lucky to just get his entire squad killed – if he lives, he's going to wish he didn't." As the Security personnel came over, Xander turned and assumed the position, hands in the air, ankles apart, "Hi guys, long time no see, eh?"

"Harris," one of them growled, "I thought Commander Troi-Riker asked you to stay out of trouble?"

Xander shrugged as one hand was put into restraints, and then the other, "I did stay out of trouble, but it follows me around like a wee lost lamb. So," he went on as the other restraint was fastened, "am I off to the Brig?"

"No," the first guard, Edward, if Xander remembered correctly, said. "We're off to the doc to make sure that you haven't lost any of your cookies – after that, it's up to her."

Xander nodded in agreement as they turned away and the Marine cadets were rounded up by the DI, each of them grabbing a piece of the fallen asshole, "So, Edward, how's your wife? You said she was going to be mad at you for something the last time you had me in handcuffs…"

(Later)

Deanna sighed for not the first time – she had been on her way out of the door of her office when the call had come through not half an hour ago that Xander had been in a somewhat minor altercation with one of the Marine cadets, one whom had started the altercation, and it was a clear-cut case of self-defense in her eyes, but there was something else in the security sensor logs that worried her. When the Marine cadet had made for an eye-gouge to Xander's left eye, something flittered across his face and then the destruction of David McCallum's entire right arm, from shoulder to wrist there were twelve broken bones and twice as many torn muscles, ligaments and tendons that, thanks to the marvel of Starfleet technology, was imminently reparable. She had then looked back into his files and saw that Xander had, thanks to the cloning of a human eye by his military, been the recipient of an eye injury that had been so bad that it required the total replacement of his eye.

"Commander?" She looked up and saw the security personnel walking Xander into the room, still dressed in his running shorts and the loose shirt he had been wearing, "Do you want us to stay here?"

She shook her head, "No, Lt. McCallum, that won't be necessary – release him so that he and I can talk, please." She searched Xander's face and emotions as the restraints were taken off and was more than a little shocked when she didn't feel anything of any interest, like this was not the first time he had been physically restrained, which it was not since his arrival at Starfleet Academy. When the Security officers left, Deanna sighed, "Xander, are you okay?"

He shrugged slightly, rubbing his wrists, "Not bad, Commander, though, for the record, B&D isn't exactly my thing." He gave her a light grin as she refused to blush, merely arching a dark eyebrow, "So, do I get doped up and live the rest of my life as a zombie, Commander?"

"That is certainly an option, given how destructive you are capable of being, Xander," Deanna said and nodded with a tone of unhappiness; she hated having to medicate people – it only masked the symptoms of the problem, not solve them, "but we do have a problem here – you are a hair's width away from being booted out of the Academy as a risk to both the students and the faculty, and that will not change until you talk to me about your problems."

Xander, for his part, just snorted, "Excuse my language, Commander, how in the hell am I supposed to talk to someone about what I've been through who doesn't know where I'm coming from? All those head jockeys back on D6 used to tell us were that 'it's natural to be afraid' or 'you can't let your aggression get the better of you', and that's bull!" Deanna felt more than a little frustration vent from his mind as he ran his hands through his hair, gripping it slightly and growling, "They never saw the things we saw, did the things we were ordered to do, and yet they think that a few mealy-mouthed little words are going to get us to be all better? Am I the only one who sees the flawed logic in that 'I wasn't there, but I can sympathize with you'? I think that unless you've been there, you can't help someone!"

"Is that it, Xander? Is that what is …bugging you? That you cannot talk to anyone about what you've been through … because nobody has?" Honestly, it was a very real problem in the Federation, given the way that they often made war at a distance, not in the brutal way that was recorded on Demons 6, and yet before her was a survivor of that war, a soldier in it, and now he was coming apart at the mental seams because there was nobody for him to talk to.

"Well, that and everyone wants me to talk about it! I don't WANT to talk about it! I just want to forget that it all," he shot out of his chair and began to rant before going off into some language that the Universal Translators could not translate, or would not translate. After a few minutes of ranting, though, he finally stopped, sighed, and sat down again, his face flushed, "Sorry about that, Commander – no woman should ever hear that kind of language."

"And what language was it, precisely? Not many cannot or will not be translated by the Universal Translators we have."

Xander nodded at this, "It was an Earth language, from many centuries ago – my people, my Clan, are something of historians, we always were, Commander, and long ago we visited a few cultures on this world known as the Egyptians and the Sumerians. In exchange for some of their culture and their knowledge, we … helped them out." She shot him a surprised look and he gave her a surprisingly impish grin, "What, do you think that they made those first pyramids all by themselves?"

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly, "Your people did not have a Prime Directive, then? There was no law against non-interference with another culture that was not ready to undergo First Contact?"

Xander just shrugged, "Back then? No, but a few centuries later we did, after a minor problem on Earth … kinda vaporized an island."

Deanna felt a faint gnawing in her stomach as several pieces of a much-larger puzzle began to slip together, "And did that island have a name, Xander?"

Xander nodded, "Yes, I think it was called … Atlantis."

She repressed a grimace, in that this was one instance that she didn't want to be right, "I thought all of your records were destroyed in the war, though? How could you know all of this?"

He shrugged at her, an easy gesture that apparently came from years of long practice, "My Clan was generally considered to be neutral in all wars, Commander – this latest war had gone on for nearly a decade before we were brought into it, so I was already born when that happened. All children in our Clan received what would equate to a Doctorate in History and Anthropology in Starfleet by the time we reached the age of majority, Commander, as we were drilled and made to study all of the archives to the point that we were specialized in at least four languages not native to our world and could find seven systems with developing or developed world in the stars, if necessary." The gentle smile he wore during his small history lesson, a smile that Deanna actually felt good about, slowly withered away as his face darkened and his eyes grew colder, "And then it happened."

"What happened, Xander?"

"Something I'd rather not talk about, Commander," he bit out slightly, obviously angry as she felt waves of sorrow, anger, hate and more than a little self-loathing flow out of him.

She conceded that point, for now, and sat back in her chair as he silently simmered for a few minutes; once she decided that he had sufficiently calmed down, "Xander … is this why you have had so many problems here? That there are so many things that you cannot talk about?"

He sat silently in his chair for a few moments, but when he looked up, his eyes were haunted, more so than she had ever seen them before, "I have so many problems, Commander, because in the end, this is all one big test – the cosmos is testing me, testing us all … and I'm not sure if I'm going to pass."

Deanna shook her head slightly, "That's all I need to hear, for now – Xander, I want you to go back to your dorm room and to get some sleep and, tomorrow, you are excuse from classes. I want you here at 0900, and we're going to talk some more, okay?"

He nodded at her and she dismissed him, leaving her office not long after he did, going back to her home and curling up into the side of her couch, wishing that her husband were there – Will always knew what to do in times like this, but he was busy with his new Captain's commission, shaking down his new Defiant-class ship, the _Gladiator_.

(Next Day, 0800)

He was already awake when Richard left the room, he hadn't technically gone to sleep, nor did he actually need sleep anymore, but Xander felt … different on that day; by no means was he over what had happened the previous evening, the attack, the reaction … none of it, but for some odd reason, he felt as if he were at peace with himself over something. He'd long since memorized his past on Demons 6, his planet's past and their past with Earth, and while some of it he was sure was his father's way of messing with the humans, other parts of it … well, it made too much sense.

"Is that so, son?" Ah, yes, enter the father… "Would you have preferred a dragon of some kind?"

Xander looked over and at his father, who was wearing his natural superior smirk to a T, and groaned, "That was bad, dad, even for you."

"You have no sense of taste in humor, son," Q fired back at him even as he sat up. "So, how do you feel today, son?"

"Oddly enough, I feel better – why?" He went through his motions of cleaning up and getting changed, but his father didn't seem to realize it even as his voice followed him.

"Xander, you are far too emotional of a person to keep things bottled up inside – things happen and, every once in a while, you are forced to tell people what they want to know in order to get things off of your chest. Your time as a human should have told you that."

He pulled on his uniform and groaned as he did as his muscles protested slightly, "I don't want to give anyone nightmares, dad – that place … it was hell."

Q arched his eyebrow at his son, "Are you sure? In case you have forgotten, son, before your arrival in this universe, it never existed, YOU, Alexander Q. Harris, never existed, so how could it have been 'hell', as you put it?" Q snapped his fingers and instantly Xander found himself in a place filled with the stench of brimstone, burning flesh, the screams of the damned and the wails of agony of the unlucky, "THIS, son, is Hell, and let me assure you that it has nothing to do with what happened on Demons 6."

Xander snapped his fingers and found both himself and his father back in his dorm room, a rather shocked look on Q's face, "You're right, dad, Demons 6 isn't anything like that place, but consider it from a mortal's point of view."

Q shuddered, "Son, don't ask me to give myself nightmares, but alright, as long as you consider Demons 6 from a Q's point of view – it's the perfect testing ground for a young Q! It will show us and you what you are made of, what you are capable of…"

"And if this grand little experiment of yours has a hope in hell of ever working?"

Q shot him a smile, "Son, how cynical of you, I'm so proud!"

Xander just rolled his eyes, "Are you ever going to grow up?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it, though your step-mother and Kathie wish otherwise."

Xander sighed and walked towards his door, "Speaking of whom, don't you have a captain, an Emissary or an admiral to be bugging, or something? After all, they're only human."

Q smiled at him, "You know, it has been a while since I checked in on dear Jean-Luc – I bet that he's quite bored and he'd love to have me around. Have fun, son!" With that, Xander's father flashed away in a blink of light and Xander felt time start up again – his feeling and control of his power was now a level that he could feel any changes to the 'norm' around him, though honestly it was so muddled with the other energies that it was nigh impossible for him to feel the smaller things that had been altered, rather than the big thing. Of course, that amounted to a big pile of crap when he wasn't able to even go by the old one-liner, 'next mood swing, 6 minutes', because unlike the Swiss watch, he wasn't that regular … and that brought up bad images, so eww.

"Xander?" He stopped and turned to see Wendy standing not seven feet off to his side, a look of worry on her dusky features, her uniform slightly rumpled, as if she had slept in it, and her eyes tired, "Is it true?"

He blinked, thinking about how much of a loaded question that was, "Is what true?"

She stepped forwards, "That you killed a Marine cadet last night and put four others in sickbay?"

He blinked, "Uh, Wendy, if I HAD done that, do you think I'd be out, walking to get breakfast right now? I'd be locked down so tight that I couldn't take a piss without an Admiral's permission."

She blushed a light green at this, "But … the rumor's that you did it have even reached me! I'm the lowest of the low when it comes to gossip!"

He rolled his eyes slightly, remember when Willow had done basically the same thing back in high school, "Wendy, there is one key word in those two sentences that you just said – gossip. I hurt one Marine and had a few words with Commander Troi-Riker, nothing else."

She nodded at him, slightly dazed for a few minutes before she stopped and blushed lightly, "Oh, um, how … are you doing? Really, I mean?"

He shrugged, "Aside from being a little hungry, not bad – hell, to tell you the truth, I haven't felt this good in a long time." With that, he turned and started walking to the Commissary, "If you want to join me, I won't stop you." He wasn't too surprised when, at first, he heard nothing behind him, but was rather pleasantly amused when he heard her squeak slightly and then scamper to catch up with him.

"Slow down! My legs aren't as long as yours," Wendy groused slightly as she caught up. As they walked, though, she looked both around them and then at him, "Xander, why is nobody getting close to you?"

"Because they've undoubtedly heard the same rumors you heard, Wendy," he replied blandly. "Though, actually, it's not a bad thing in that they're probably thinking either you're really brave to get this close to me or really stupid."

He felt her bristle at that slightly but said nothing in return as they went to the Commissary and went through the line quickly, Xander loading up on his normal fare of fruits, meats and grains while Wendy went for some of the more traditional human fare of eggs, meats, toast and, oddly enough, coffee. He had noticed that, in Sunnydale, Willow didn't react too easily to coffee, which most times it was like Hyper Willow to the nth power, but for Wendy it appeared to have the opposite effect, a calming one. Honestly, he wasn't sure which one he would rather have, Hyper Willow or Sedated Wendy, "So, how are you?"

She sipped her coffee, black and with two sugars, gulped, sighed and looked at him with slightly hooded eyes, "Huh? Oh, I'm fine, now."

"Long night?" He selected some melon and made the motion of looking around, knowing that there wasn't anyone around them for a good ten feet, generally in that they had gotten the hell out of dodge once he and Wendy had taken a seat in the middle of the cafeteria-like tables.

She nodded tiredly, "Xenobiology test this afternoon, and then I have a cross-training course in Ops training later on. B'eth has a flight test scheduled for today, so that she can get her first level qualifications out of the way," she went on, ending her sentence with a light scoff.

Xander blinked, "What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just that I think B'eth is an adrenaline junkie – she's always pushing the envelope on her flight training, in the holodeck, and in her regular exercises!" Wendy then gave off a slightly Klingon-esque growl and ran her hands through her dark hair, "I swear, she's trying to drive me insane with always trying to get me to come with her in flight simulators."

Xander didn't even bother to comment about it – both knew that B'eth loved the rush, the thrill, and would do just about anything that didn't compromise her honor to get said rush, including dragging them along to go off on some insane ride she'd found in the holodecks. A few more minutes went by and their breakfasts were consumed at a normal pace for the pair of the, Wendy having barely touched hers while he had gone through it with the mentality of 'eat now, taste it later', but at the end, they both stood up in unison and deposited their utensils and trays into the receptacles before walking out and into the student quad.

"So," Wendy said suddenly, "where does this put us?"

He looked back at the building, "About fifteen meters from the Commissary?" She shot him an irritated grin and he shot back at her a rather amused half-grin, "Oh, come on, Wendy, you should have seen that one coming a mile away."

She sniffed at him in a semi-playful way, "You haven't said an entire page of words to me in almost two months and the first thing out of your mouth is a joke – this tells me how much you like your half-blooded Vulcans."

He rolled his eyes, "Wendy, we needed time apart, all three of us – I'm not sure how you and B'eth took it, but for me … it was enlightening."

She looked over at him and arched a dark eyebrow perfectly, "Really? How so?"

"Nice elevation, Wendy," he said somewhat dryly. "Has Seven been giving you lessons?"

Wendy shook her head, "No, I think the eyebrow thing is instinctual in all Vulcans. So, again, I ask, how so?"

He shrugged as they continued to walk slowly, both of them rather pointedly ignoring the crowds that were off to the side, pointing and staring, "Well, I've learned just how much I really don't know about this place without you and B'eth to point things out and, when necessary, kick me in the ass to get me moving. Not to mention, I've learned just how much energy Miral has to her name when she's off on a tear."

Wendy smiled slightly at this, "Yeah, she is a little fusion generator, isn't she? Is she still trying to learn piano?"

Xander nodded, remembering the day that she had blind-sided Harry into trying to teach her, "Yeah, and she's not doing too badly. She's learned Chopsticks, and Mary Had A Little Lamb, already, but her crossover needs work."

Wendy shot him a look, "Xander, she's not even two yet – it's a miracle she's even able to reach the pedals."

Xander snorted, "Not after Commander Torres hacked the holographic legs off of one and gave her a booster seat. Add to that Miral having her mother's tenacity and her father's touch of artistic genius and you have the recipe for a child prodigy who can't even tie her shoes yet."

Wendy nodded at this and said nothing else as they walked to the main building of the Academy over the next few minutes, both of them using a leisurely pace to eat up the distance. Eventually, though, they reached their mutual destination and she turned to him, "Are you going to be okay?"

He looked at her oddly, "Why shouldn't I be? It's on a trip to the head doctor – it's her you should be worried about."

She shot him a slightly irritated look, "Xander, stop joking! She's trying to help you and … if she can't …"

He nodded, "Yeah, I know, I read the rules too – I'm out of Starfleet, permanently." That had been a real shot in the arm when he had read those regulations pertaining to mental instability in students and in crewmembers – if you had already graduated, you had more rope to hang yourself with, but as a student, he was already on the edge of that platform and the executioner had an itchy trigger finger on the pull lever.

"Just, be careful, okay? I mean, just think about what you say, and how you act," she advised. "I mean, do you want to be stuck here alone with B'eth? I'll go grey from the fear of her trying to talk me into a shuttlecraft before I graduate."

He snorted at that, "And you need to get over your fear of heights, especially before you have to take your MANDITORY three weeks of space walking in EV suits."

Wendy pouted cutely at that, "I still think that's a bad idea. What possible reason would I have to ever get outside of my ship in an EV suit and walk around in? It's not like I'm going to infiltrate a starship in order to save it from hostile aliens or anything."

He shot her an odd look, "Where do you come up with these things? I mean, that's right out of science fiction and fantasy, or one of those cheesy romance holonovels that you think I don't know you and B'eth devour like kids do candy." He repressed a smile at her look of pure shock and then pulled her into a friendly hug, "Look, I'll try and be good – that's all I can promise, okay?"

She nodded into his chest and hugged him back, making him wince a little, "Talk to you later?"

"Of course – I haven't been glared at by you and B'eth in tandem in a long time, so I think it's high time we did that." She shot him a slightly fond glare of pure irritation and turned away, going off to do whatever it was that she was going to do, so he went off the other way and did the same.

The halls cleared, which amused him slightly, as he came down them, many of the students and faculty trying to look somewhat casual about it, but others were quite comical about it, especially one fairly high-strung Bolean who dove over a chest-high barrier into an office woman's lap. He didn't say anything about it, though, as he approached Commander Troi-Riker's office and pressed the call button, which was promptly answered by the door opening.

"Hello, Xander."

He smiled and entered the room, "Commander Troi-Riker. So, what's up, Doc?" It was, naturally, at that point that he noticed that the pair of them were not alone, "Oh, uh … hi, Admirals."

(Deanna's POV)

Deanna smiled as Xander walked into the room and made an unconscious reference to an old Earth animated character and his mode of addressing someone, but he then noticed that they had company. "Come in and have a seat, Xander – we have much to discuss."

He walked in and she watched his eyes scan the room, each of the officers there, only two of which, other than herself, were not Admirals, and she could see him draw up into a nearly-perfect salute, which was returned, and he then took a seat – it worried Deanna a little that she could feel so little from Xander, especially since he was looking at nearly 100 years of combined Command experience in the same room. His face was a stone mask, his shoulders were perfectly square, and she felt nothing more than cold professionalism out of him even as Admiral Janeway spoke up, "Xand … Cadet Harris, we have gathered here this morning to ask you several questions pertaining to the altercation last night between yourself and Marine Cadet David McCallum – your answers will determine if you are to stay both in the Starfleet Academy and out of the Brig, is that understood?"

His tone was perfectly crisp as he spoke, "Perfectly, Admiral Janeway."

Deanna looked over at Admiral Chekov, the youngest daughter of the original Chekov, of the Enterprise NCC-1701, and she looked exactly like her father except for the fact that she was taller and, of course, female, as she spoke up with a voice totally devoid of any Russian accent, "Cadet Harris, witnesses say that you were merely running when Marine Cadet McCallum approached you – did you in any way provoke this altercation?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge, Admiral. I was running because I could not sleep, Marine Cadet McCallum approached me and I tried to be civil."

Admiral Davis, a short, stocky man whom had once been a Marine before coming to Starfleet Command, and eventually becoming an Admiral, narrowed his eyes, "Tell me, son, did you intend to kill him?"

Deanna shivered as Xander looked at the Admiral and coldly put, "If I had, Admiral, I would be up on murder charges – he attacked me, I defended myself and … then, sir, he went for an eye gouge. I'm not sure what happened next, but the next thing I know he's on the ground, face first, unconscious, and he's injured."

Doctor Beverly Crusher, head of Starfleet Medical and one of Deanna's closest friends spoke up at that point as she read off from a PADD, "Ten fractured bones, seven torn ligaments and tendons, a dislocated shoulder, a torn rotator cuff, a dislocated elbow, numerous strained and pulled muscles and a shattered wrist, Cadet – I'd say that was more than a simple injury."

"I never said it was a 'simple' injury, Doctor, I merely said he was injured." Deanna could feel a little heat behind Xander's words as he reigned in his temper, "I do have a question, though – does his brother hold a grudge? He delivered me here last night."

Deanna shook her head, "No, Xander, he does not – Michael has not lodge any complaints against you and, in fact, had lodged several against his brother."

He nodded at her, "Thank you, Commander."

Captain Rhade of he Judge Advocate's corps then spoke up, his Asian features granted to him by the same heritage strictly contrasted with his fair skin and light brown hair, "Cadet Harris, this is not the first time you have been in trouble – tell me, why is it that we should continue to endanger the cadets and faculty of this Academy with your continued enrollment?"

Deanna again felt nothing out of Xander as he spoke again, though after a few moments of thought, "Sir, with all due respect, if you didn't want me here in the first place, why was I ever accepted? You knew my past, all of it before it and my file were sanitized by my government and Starfleet, and now after a single Marine cadet who had too much ego and not enough brains starts a fight with me, you seek to blame me?"

"We are the ones asking the questions, Cadet," Admiral Janeway, Xander's staunchest supporter, reminded him somewhat coolly. "Captain Rhade's question still stands, though – why should you be allowed to stay, given your past actions and last night's altercation?"

Again, it was several moments before Xander spoke, but this time it wasn't the professional tone they got, it was a tone that clearly stated that he was about to say something that would more than likely get him in trouble, but it needed to be said, "Admiral Janeway, to be perfectly blunt about it, I'm a token, nothing more, nothing less; a 'savage' from a new Federation planet who is to be schooled and molded into an officer of Starfleet so others of my planet can follow. Unfortunately for you, for Starfleet in general, is that while you are willing to force us to change, you're forgetting that this Cadet and many future cadets were soldiers who fought war on terms that very few in Starfleet could understand, under conditions that, quite frankly, were inhumane. I've been subjected to chemical therapy to enhance my performance in the field, I've undergone hypnotic therapy to both alter my memories and my abilities to cope, and now when the very same instincts that were drilled into me as a boy have been used without thought or malice it is my neck on the chopping block." He stopped and took a breath, calming the heat in his voice, which had been building slightly as he spoke, "Admirals, Captains, Commander, Doctor, I'm sorry about what I did, I really am, but I warned Admiral Janeway what would happen if I was attacked. I have a lot of rough edges that will take time to wear down, and I've made progress in my treatments and in my classes. If you want to get rid of me, fine, I'm gone by sundown, but think very hard before you ask another of my people to come here, to learn your way and to become like you – I am the first, but I won't be the last to sit in this chair."

They were all silent for several minutes as Deanna felt their emotions range from proud, to curious, to amused and even to a bit annoyed, but it was Captain Chakotay who spoke up next, Admiral Janeway's former XO, "Nice speech, son, but it won't save you – you're not being very diplomatic."

Xander snorted at this, "All due respect, Captain, I was a soldier and I am currently an engineer in training, not a diplomat – I build and destroy things, not mince words or paint pretty pictures to get a vote or two."

"You'd made one hell of a Marine with that attitude," Admiral Davis smirked slightly as Deanna felt a little amusement enter the room, "but that brings up another problem we need to discuss. It has been submitted to us that you be allowed to enter a retrofit and upgrade project on the Sovereign-class that is being spear-headed by both Lt. Commander Torres and Lt. Hensen – in fact, they asked for you by name. We know that you are being mentored by Lt. Commander Torres until Commander LaForge is back from duty on the Enterprise-E, but why would Lt. Hensen ask for you?"

Xander arched on eyebrow, slightly, "Unofficially, sir, officers are allowed to use cadets as their PA's and, earlier last semester, I lost a bet between myself, Cadets Michaels and De'lan that had been made with Lt. Hensen, regarding a test grade, so I am her unofficial PA. We've become friends, something that has been kept completely within regulations, and in the process she has taught me a great deal about the computer systems of Starfleet, and many other organizations."

Deanna arched her own eyebrow at this, "She is not only your 'boss' and your superior officer, but you claim her as your friend?"

"Not at first, Commander – she made the claim of friendship, not I, and she knows that I take friendship very seriously."

"You also have been documented to have being a babysitter for Lt. Commander Torres and her husband for their daughter," Captain Chakotay said with more than a little humor in his voice. "How'd you get dragged into that?"

Xander just shrugged, "I drew the short straw, Captain, and both Miral and I get along rather well."

"She's driven four people to the brink, Cadet," Deanna chipped in, remembering the horror stories of the 'Tiny Terror Torres-Paris' from several of her former patients. "Consider yourself lucky."

"Thank you for your time, Cadet," Admiral Chekov said suddenly. "You are dismissed – our judgment will be rendered by noon." Xander stood, saluted and then walked out of the room in a crisp walk. As soon as the doors closed, though, Admiral Miranda Chekov smiled slightly and spoke with only a little of her accent showing through, "He is blunt, yes?"

"Very," Admiral Davis said with a grunt. "But that doesn't make him any less right – we can expect several blowups from the people of Demons 6 for the next few decades, easily … and who in the hell named that place? Demons don't exist."

"They do within our own minds, Admiral," Deanna stated somewhat primly to her superior officer, "and that young man is proof of it. Personally, I didn't feel anything wrong with him, and I think that he's coming along well with his treatments." Deanna lowered her gaze, slightly, and frowned, "Though I cannot say the same for Cadet McCallum – I stopped by Medical this morning and … I must say I am disturbed." Admiral Janeway and Beverly both nodded, as both were there for the rather spectacular mental meltdown that had happened to the senior-level Cadet, whom had sworn vengeance on Xander for all time due to his 'cheating in combat'.

"I'll have one of my people look at him, Doctor," Admiral Davis said somewhat frostily, as if he didn't trust her opinion at all. That, of course, wasn't anything new as the Admiral and former Marine didn't trust anyone except the man in the mirror. Davis' face then became somewhat petulant, "Are you sure I can't talk you into letting him run as a Marine?"

Admiral Janeway sighed in disgust at this, "Oh, be quiet, Davis – nobody likes a whiny Marine." Before Davis could fire back at her, Admiral Janeway turned to Admiral Chekov, "Admiral, what do you recommend as Alexander's punishment?"

"I'm leaning towards revoking his recreational holodeck privileges for the rest of the semester and the first semester of next year, Admiral, and having him continue his psychiatric sessions for at least that long, at which another evaluation will be preformed and we can go from there."

Deanna nodded at this, "That is fair, Admiral, but I would also ask that you also recommend to Captain Rhade that Alexander's weapons training take a more traditional course, as well as the Self-Defense courses that are requisite for graduation from the Academy."

Both Admirals Janeway and Davis snorted at this, the latter speaking, "Commander, he's a trained soldier, so having him take the Aikido course is a waste of time, in my opinion."

Janeway spoke up then, "I agree, but as a martial arts course is necessary, I would recommend that he tries a more … esoteric one, one that could possibly help him with his mental well-being."

"How about the Vulcan form of Tai Chi?" Deanna looked over at Captain Rhade, who had a light grin on his face, "Well, it's rather meditative, and it's good for the body."

Admiral Chekov smiled, suddenly, "And that is where you met your wife, yes?"

Deanna smiled as Beverly chuckled, "I'd say that makes you biased, but it is a good idea." The CMO of Starfleet then looked over at her, "So, Deanna, will you tell him?"

She nodded, "After lunch – let him sweat a little."

Admiral Janeway chuckled a little, "I see your husband is rubbing off on you, Commander."

"Not necessarily a bad thing, Admiral."

(Academy Grounds – later)

Xander sat and contemplated one of Boothby's prized Azaleas, thinking of ways that he could both create and destroy one in the snap of a finger, and the list was starting to scare him, really, ranging from simple crushing to something more exotic, like a localized black hole the size of an atomic particle within the plant's central stalk. It was at that point that the wind picked up ever so slightly and brought a familiar scent to his nostrils – leather, musk, spice and just a hint of something else that he was not able to place at present, but that particular scent only belonged to one person, "Hello, B'eth."

"Xander," she greeted him from behind, but he didn't turn to greet her. "Rumor has it that you are awaiting your judgment."

He grinned slightly, "We all await judgment, B'eth, at one point or another."

She was silent for a few moments before she spoke, "True – such wise words from such a foolish human." He heard her step around the tree he'd been sitting against and she sat next to him, but did not look at him, "So, how have you been?"

"Tolerable – except for the fight last night, if you want to call it that, I haven't had a problem in the past month or so. Yourself? Other than trying to make Wendy go grey before her time, that is."

B'eth snorted and looked down at the ground between her knees, as she sat with her feet planted and knees bent, "Wendy needs to be less timid – no male worth his salt will ever consider her for a mate if she does not assert herself."

Xander looked over at her and arched an eyebrow at her, "She's afraid you're going to kill her with your flying skills, B'eth – it's not fear, its survival instincts."

B'eth shot him an irritated look, "I'm not that bad of a pilot! I only crashed the simulator four times before I figured out how to restart the engines cold in freefall, and twice on my landings."

"Yeah, I'm sure telling her that made her feel that much better," he said somewhat blandly, earning him a sharp elbow in the ribs that doubled him over. "Ow."

B'eth bent down and looked him in the eyes for the first time and, with a saccharine sweet smile, she asked, "Did that hurt?"

Xander looked into her eyes, smiled and sat back up, "No, not really, but you get an A for effort, B'eth." He watched her sit back up and glare at him lightly for a few minutes, not saying a word, until she broke contact and sat back a little, "So, what's wrong?"

She looked at him again, "What?"

He gave her a level look, "B'eth, you are a passionate person who doesn't hide her emotions very well – what is wrong?"

She was quiet for a moment before she sighed, "You didn't trust me."

He nodded, half-expecting that to be the answer, "And?"

"And I was under the impression that you did trust me."

Xander nodded more to himself than to anyone, but he also sighed, "B'eth, do you know how I stayed alive?" She looked over and shook her head, "Simply put, I didn't trust anyone – no ifs, ands or buts about it, trust got a whole bunch of people killed on my planet … and more importantly, it got my clan killed." Memories of places he'd never been swelled to the forefront of his mind again and he closed his eyes, blocking them out, "It became second nature to me to only trust people as much as I had to … and it carried over into our friendship."

"Are we friends, Xander?" He looked over at her and saw a shimmer on her eyes, "Or are Wendy and I … acquaintances?"

Now it was his turn to be quiet for a few moments, a slight breeze stirring the air around them even a classes let out and the students stirred around them, "Alright, I'll make you a deal, then – I'll tell you whatever you want to know, every gory detail and bloody death, and if you can even stand to look at me after it, we'll be friends. Deal?"

She nodded, "Deal."

Of course, it was at that time that his commbadge buzzed, "Yes?"

"Cadet Harris, report to Commander Troi-Riker's office, immediately."

(Week 26 – Cadet Dorm rooftop)

It had been three weeks since he had told both B'eth and Wendy every little detail of his life, well, as far as Alexander Q. Harris was concerned, and both of them still needed time to digest what he had told them, time that he freely gave them as he had no time to spend with them anyway. He'd been allowed to stay in Starfleet, but with some seriously harsh restrictions for the rest of the semester, like no holodeck time, which really sucked because he was getting really close to finishing his monument to the Sunnydale fallen, and he had to go to the shrink now four days out of every seven to talk about his past and his feelings, which was a crock in his mind, but at least the shrink he got had been one of the survivors of the DS9 attack by the Dominion, so she didn't get sick all of the time. His classes were intensifying as both Seven and B'elana prepared him for some sort of long-term job, and he was starting to feel the pressure, even as Q … but there was something else there, or rather, what wasn't there.

When he spoke to the doctor about his home on Demons 6, he was completely emotionless about it simply because he could not fathom what it was like to lose such a place – sure, he'd come close in Sunnydale on several occasions, but never like what his memories showed, hence his being on top of the dorm building, sitting on the edge, staring out over the Academy grounds and pondering the cosmos … which is where she found him.

"Hi, mom," he said somewhat listlessly even as she flashed into being behind him – he could now tell the subtle differences between the energy signatures between his father, brother and step-mother, and he could even start to tell the differences between he human energy patters he was exposed to all of the time, so he was rarely surprised (Seven was the sole exception as of yet – her Borg makeup made her difficult to track even at the best of times).

"Son." She didn't say anything else as she came over and slowed time down, sitting on the edge of the building with him.

Xander didn't even look at her, "What brings you here?"

"I came to see how you were doing, son. I could feel your … distress."

This made him look over at him, "Really?"

She nodded, "Yes – it was … disturbing."

Xander snorted and shook his head, "You should feel it on my end."

She let the silence loom for several minutes, not caring that he could feel she had stopped time, until it became slightly oppressive, "You have a problem connecting with your fictional past, yes?" He nodded, not trust himself to speak, so she went on, "And if I could show you what you want to see?"

"It's not what I want to see, it's what I need to see, mom," he half-snapped at her, feeling bad about it instantly as she flinched back. "Sorry – you didn't deserve that, but it's … damn, I wish I could explain this." He got to his feet and she watched him then began to pace the area like a caged animal.

"It's alright – from what I've learned about humans, they often say things they do not mean when they are irritated for no good reason." She stood and walked next to him, placing her right hand on his shoulder and raising her left, "Let us change that, shall we?" With that, Q-F smiled at him and snapped her fingers.

(Demons 6 – Unknown time)

Xander felt his stomach lurch slightly as he and his step-mother landed on vibrant green grass-filled patch of lawn, and he stuck his head between his knees for a few seconds, doing his best to keep his lunch in his stomach. He took deep breaths and settled his stomach even as he heard Q-F chuckling next to him.

"Yes, your first trip as a passenger is a touch … unsettling, especially for the younger humans," she admitted. He took several more deep breaths before slowly coming to an upright position and looking around as Q-F went on, "Welcome to Demons 6, approximately 20 years ago."

He looked around and was surprised to see that, while not picturesque given the blood-red stone buildings around him, it was actually very nice to see – there were kids running around and playing, wives hanging things up to dry in the sun, men and older teens were walking around with tablets in hand, debating back and forth over points of logic and science, not to mention bits of history, in tongues that were instantly recognizable by his brain as a smattering of Human languages long-since dead, and there was a smell in the air that triggered something in his brain and brought a smile to his face. The general dress of the people there was a loose shirt and pants for men, dresses for women and a smattering of things for the kids, and the skin tones and physical features ran the gamut as far as he could see.

"This is the Southern Province, the center of knowledge on the planet of Demons 6, and these are the caretakers of the knowledge," Q-F said to him with a slight smile on her face. "For eons they have collected and guarded the knowledge of hundreds of planets and thousands of cultures, all of which were stored in massive underground vaults on what you could term as CD's – millions of units of information that spanned the galaxy were kept there, open to all who sought knowledge, and it was commonly known amongst the other people of Demons 6 that these people were peaceful, knowledgeable and neutral to the world's strife." She waved her hand and time passed, day became night, night became day, and so on until one night there was a shrill cry of a baby and they walked into a house, where a woman had just given birth. Xander felt his throat go dry as the baby was raised up and a shock of dark brown hair could be seen atop it's head, and chocolate eyes opened before squeezing shut and the baby wailed, "Yes, son, that is you … so to speak. As far as the universe is concerned, you were born at the tolling of midnight upon the first day of their year, an omen of great things amongst your clan."

Q-F sped up time slightly for a few 'hours' and then stopped it as the mother, his mother, held his newborn body, and Xander's heart stopped in his chest when he recognized her, even as Q-F began to speak again, "Your father, Q, looked into your mind, son, and has sprinkled this galaxy with familiar faces from your past, some of which you have met, others of which you may not meet, but this is my gift to you, son – your mother's name … is Joyce." He'd seen pictures of Joyce when she was at the appropriate age to give birth to him, and she was a dead ringer for those pictures as he felt his heart start beating again and Q-F went on, "Your mother's choice of your father is dead, but he was a life-long friend of hers, not her husband, as she never married for some reason or another, and she is the local art expert."

Xander looked at Joyce for several more minutes even as she breastfed her new baby, and he was surprised that he felt a touch of warmth in his heart even as the midwives bustled around, fluffing this and checking that even as he watched the baby boy finish his meal, Joyce put herself away and the newborn belch slightly before falling off into a slumber. He'd always wanted Joyce for his mother, ever since meeting her she had given off that 'Mother' vibe that he'd felt so very little over his life, which is why, after all of his training was over, he was going to start up plans for –

"Don't even think about it, son," Q-F said somewhat sadly. He looked over at her and she went on, "There are more powers at work there than you would believe, and not even Q can bring back someone who has been embraced by Him."

Well, so much for that plan, "Alright, but like father says, 'there is always a way around everything and everyone – you just have to find it'." He looked around for a few seconds and then back at his step-mother, "This place is nice – what happened?"

Q-F held up a hand and time sped forwards, the baby boy in front of him growing up to the age of three, and then to nearly ten when she stopped time, "The first ten years of your life were nice, quaint, even, and that is the day that it happened." She teleported them outside and Xander looked around, seeing nothing wrong … and that's when he heard it – the soft whine, the classic sound of a bomb falling, and he looked up in time to see four large egg-shaped masses fall from the sky and detonate, blowing away almost everything that was standing within ten square miles, "It was leaked to both sides from their more insidious and war-minded that the Southern region was gearing up for war in favor of the other side, so both sides launched a long-ranged attack simultaneously at the larger population centers of this region. The effects, as you can see, were catastrophic." She held up her hand as he made to dash into the house they had just left, which had been all but leveled.

"NO! LET ME GO!" He drew in every erg of energy he could muster and steal from the area and bent his mind to freeing himself, but he was still young and untrained, and she was fully Q – he didn't have a prayer of getting loose even as time began to move along more quickly.

"Fear not, son, this story has an almost-happy ending," Q-F said even as his mind raged and his body struggled, words that calmed him only slightly as the scene changed again. It was now in an underground area, a large, cavernous place that had large alcoves and tunnels leading away, presumably to other areas, "Your people weren't caught by complete surprise, son – they had been expecting this for the past few years, so in secret they had been building underground, bomb-proof areas where they could hide. Your mother had you and herself in those caves by the time the first bombs went off.

"Your people, though, took a stance that was rather alien to them at this point – many were decidedly unhappy that they had been attacked with little or no provocation, at least REAL provocation, so they began to silently ready themselves to attack not only the East, but the West as well in hopes of getting both sides to leave them alone. It worked," Q-F went on, a slightly bitter tone in her voice, "but only to a point – raids went on and on for nearly a year, taking supplies and intelligence from both sides, at which point your people in the South annoyed both of them enough to have them work together. For the next seven years your people were alone, outnumbered and outgunned, but not out-classed – when it became clear that they were starting to lose, the Clan elders all decided to try using their knowledge and concocted a plan that would eventually turn the tide of the war in their favor, but at a heavy cost."

"The drugs." Xander shivered at the memory of what that cocktail of stuff had 'done' to 'him', and couldn't begin to think how much sleep was lost over that particular decision.

Q-F nodded, a being flashing into existence in front of them, "That is correct, Alexander – this is the doctor who was the one who managed to create and, later, perfect the drug that was given to you and so many others – Doctor Margaret-"

"Walsh," Xander ground out, his temper flaring as Maggie Walsh's body took form. Even after everything he had seen and done, the mere mention of her name, let alone her image, angered him more than he cared to admit.

Q-F nodded, "Yes, though her last name here is Torpor, not Walsh – you did, incidentally, kill her," she chipped in almost absently. "She was just a hair too slow on an injection meant to calm you down and you not only ripped her arms off of her body, but you proceeded to beat her to death with them." Xander repressed a savage grin, remembering all the times he had dreamed of doing that to several people who REALLY irritated him, though it was often a toss-up between Snyder and Walsh who got the top billing, and Q-F went on, "Now, as I was saying, you killed her precisely two years after the implementation of the somewhat controversial plan of the elders."

"To use the kids as soldiers." Even as he said it, the words tasted sour in his mouth and Xander wondered if he would ever meet those self-same elders.

"Yes – you were 11 when your military training started, and you were 13 when you went on your first mission; the effectiveness of the younger troops was not immediately ascertainable, as none of you had any field experience, but within a year you and the teams were … well, the only way to put it in terms you can understand is that all of you were committing mass murder on levels that rival your Nazi death camps." Xander felt his stomach clench, HARD, as Q-F went on as if she were delivering the punch line of a bad joke, "Your chemical enhancements went well, outside of your beating Dr. Torpor to death, and it turned the tide for the war – within four years, it was over, and peace treaties were signed under the cause of not wanting your or your chemically-enhanced compatriots to be unleashed ever again on anybody."

"Are they still alive?"

She shook her head, "No, Alexander – many of them developed quick-growing cancers that eventually consumed them, and the few who did not were eventually institutionalized for not only their safety, but the general safety of others, but they either all committed suicide or … were assisted in those attempts."

Xander looked down at floor of the grotto, squatting as he did and picking up a small rock, "So, I'm the last … the One." She gave him an odd look as he chuckled at his own joke, but he shook his head, "Never mind – it's a simple primate joke from my world."

"Ah."

"So why did I survive? Why didn't I crack?"

"But you did, only in your own way, Alexander." She waved her hand again and they were back on top of the dorm, "But it is how you go on from this that will determine if the experiment from your world was a success or a failure."

"Was it ever tried again by the other sides?"

"No," Q-F shook her head, "and it never will be. Not only did Dr. Torpor develop the chemical enhancers, but she never wrote it down or told anyone how to make it – once the war was over, the elders agreed that the little remaining chemical was to be eradicated and any mention of it ever archived was to be destroyed, in hopes that nobody would ever try to duplicate their research and decision ever again."

He looked over at her, still thinking, "Are they still alive? Is JOYCE still alive?"

Q-F gave him a curious half-smile as he felt time begin to speed up again from its dead stop, "Now, son, that would be telling, wouldn't it?" With that, she snapped her fingers and left him alone on the roof, with many questions answered, but now with more questions than before … questions he wasn't sure he wanted to have answered.

(Week 28 – Saturday Evening)

Xander stared up at the ceiling of his shared room and growled out, not for the first in time the past few weeks, his displeasure at his revocation of his holodeck privileges – there wasn't much to do at the Academy, now that he was up with his classes, and the holodeck was one of the few ways that he could work out his inner frustrations and not have to worry about hurting someone.

"Achoo!" He looked over and smiled at the terror of so many babysitters before him, Miral Torres-Parris, as she cuddled her Flauter and sniffled yet again – she had picked up a bug some time during the past few days and wasn't at the top of her game, so both B'elana and Tom had both told him to make sure that she stayed down all night, and that she got plenty of rest. Miral, of course, did not like this and had let loose with a string of her mother's more colorful ways of expressing her displeasure – honestly, he knew she was genius with the way she could flow one Klingon curse word in with a human one as easily as she could breath.

"Bless you, Miral," he said somewhat absently. She'd been sneezing her little head off all evening, even after a trip to Medical for a shot to speed up her body's fighting of the bug, but it was a good sign.

"T'ank 'ou," she mumbled back, her nose stuffed slightly as she squeezed her Flauter a little more.

It was at this point his door chimed and he sighed, not bothering to get out of bed, "Yes?"

"Xander, it is Seven – may I speak come in?"

"Enter," he called out, long-since having gotten over his old Sunnydale instincts involving vampires and such.

Miral smiled as her Aunt Seven walked into the room she had been cooped up in with Xander for almost an hour, but frowned as she noticed the rather agitated way that her Aunt Seven walked into the room with and the same expression, and this puzzled her – very few things ever made Aunt Seven mad, and fewer still annoyed her, but Miral could tell with her keen sense of toddler logic that something was amiss even as the tall blonde woman began to pace back and forth, muttering about 'Starfleet', 'Regulations' and 'Harry'. This made her perk up even more, as the topic included her second-favorite male, Uncle Harry.

"Seven," she heard Xander call to her from the top of his bunk, a place the big poopyhead hadn't taken her when he'd gone up there, stopping the blonde in her tracks, "what are you talking about?"

Aunt Seven sighed and walked over to the bunk, looking over at her slightly and Miral frowned as her Aunt leaned forwards and whispered something that she couldn't hear – how could she tell her mommy anything if she couldn't hear what was going on? Whatever Aunt Seven said, though, got an immediate reaction out of Xander as he sat up in his bunk and looked at her strangely, "He asked you WHAT?"

"Yes, Xander, he asked me THAT question!" Miral watched as her Aunt Seven let he hair down and ran her hands through the long blonde locks, something that Miral wished she could do, but her daddy kept her hair cut short for some reason or another. "He is fully aware of what Starfleet regulations say about THAT particular subject, and yet he has the unmitigated GALL to ask me if I'm … that."

Miral scrunched up her nose as she heard Xander sigh and watched him roll out of his bunk, dropping to the ground in a crouch before rolling over on his back and sighing again – not wanting to miss the chance, Miral got up and tottled over to him, landing heavily on his stomach before curling up and resting her head on his ribs as he grunted, "Hi, Miral. Seven, don't worry about it – he's just feeling … insecure."

Miral felt her ears perk up as Aunt Seven growled and began pacing again, "About what? I hacked the Voyager medical files long ago – there's nothing about any of them that I do not know."

Miral looked up at her Aunt Seven, who had stopped and was blushing a light red even as Xander-pillow also looked up, "Seven … never mind – my mind must have been playing tricks on me. So," Xander went on and Miral laid her head back down on her Xander-pillow, "that issue aside, can I ask you a question about this project you've recommended me for?"

Seven looked at him and then at Miral, her eyes narrowing slightly, "What about it?"

Xander looked first down at Miral and then up at Seven, who he noticed was still blushing a little, "What is it?"

Seven never moved her eyes from Miral, who was starting to snore softly, "I think she's telling B'elana everything she hears – B'elana knows far too much of what Harry and I do when we watch Miral for anything else to be true."

Xander rolled his eyes, "Not that – the project?"

Seven now looked at him, but said nothing as she came over and picked Miral up, placing her on the upper bunk and allowing him to get off of the ground before motioning him outside – she had often done this in order to talk to him plainly, where he was Xander Harris, Q, not Alexander Q. Harris, and he knew that this was going to be interesting as they came to the common area and took a seat on a bench, "You are aware of the Sovereign-class starship, yes?"

"That is the replacement for the Galaxy-class, like the Enterprise-D, right? What about it?"

"What many do not know is that while it is a good ship overall, it has numerous minor flaws that, quietly, have begun to worry many of the engineers of Starfleet. Furthermore, while they are more war-like in nature, the science facilities of the ships are limited, which is something else that Starfleet Commands wants to be changed."

Xander nodded slowly, "So … they want a Sovereign-Lite, or a Galaxy-Deluxe?"

Seven was quiet for a few seconds as she thought about the words and their meanings, but then nodded, "Mostly – several of these ships have been brought into dry-dock for extensive overhauls and such while Commander LaForge on the Enterprise-E continues to shake down the ship, which may take a year or two more."

"And as he finds problems, we fix them?"

"Precisely – the problem is that while the Borg Offensive, not to mention the Dominion War, forced the ship builders to use parts meant for the Galaxy-class ships that were to be built, and while they are serviceable, they cause many of the problems within the Sovereign-class ships." Seven then sighed and shook her head, making her loose locks sway slightly as she looked down into her hands, "I have looked through many of the students and, by your merits alone, your name was brought up by the computer as a possible candidate for Engineering cadets who would retrofit and repair these ships over the next few years, thus learning what they can do and teaching them with hands-on skills."

Xander arched an eyebrow as several students took that precise moment to pass by, not sparing them a look, "So you nominated me?"

Seven nodded, also eyeing the students, "Yes – there will be over three hundred two-person teams upon these ships, working on various degrees of things while they continue to take their classes and continue their training. As they progress with their studies, they will be moved to other areas to work on the ships, and thus the retrofits will be done."

"Free labor, then?" Xander grinned slightly, a chuckle escaping his lips, "Why pay someone when you have all the cadets you need as free labor?"

Seven smiled slightly, "That is correct – as each team completes a project, their work will be gone over by two separate crewmen and evaluated, and this will ensure that the repairs, upgrades and retrofitting will be done correctly."

Xander nodded, "Smart – if I accept this, when do I start?"

"Next semester – it will be strictly extra-curricular, dependant upon your grades, Xander, and on your own time, so be sure that you want to do this." Seven leveled him with a look and he could clearly see in her eyes that she was being serious, "If you think that Lt. Commander Torres and I have been hard on you with your training so far, as the saying goes, you have not seen anything yet."

Xander fired back with his own patented look, his lop-sided smirk that, according to both Wendy and B'eth, was capable of stopping anyone at a dozen paces – Seven's own lips twitched upwards slightly as he spoke, "Trust me, Seven, I like the pressure – I eat it and the main fare for breakfast, lunch and occasionally dinner. I've recently learned that I do well under pressure, and with less time on my hands to be in the holodeck, which is off-limits to me anyway, I need to fill my time somehow."

She nodded, standing, "Then I shall make the proper documentation to get you to a training bas for the summer – there is much for you to learn that we cannot cover even this amount of time, so at the base you are sent to an Engineer will bring you up to par on the tools, equipment and possible things you will be working on. I want you to learn it, Xander, because when we move, it will be moving very quickly."

He stood up and drew to a sharp attention pose, "Aye, Aye, Lieutenant!" She gave him a tolerant smile and they walked back to his room, "So, Seven, can I ask you about these bio-neural gel packs? Something about this is … weird."

(Later)

She watched as Aunt Seven and Xander went over the intricate details of Bio-neural gel packs, whatever they were, and from her position on Xander's upper bunk, Miral was able to plan just where she was going to jump on his shoulders … if her tummy would ever stop flipping and flopping on her.

"So, this is the future of circuitry, then?" Xander's voice sounded slightly skeptical at best as he snorted, "Personally, I'd say it's a problem waiting to happen – what if someone can get some sort of a contaminate into a batch that doesn't manifest until much later?"

"That happened with Voyager's gel packs, Xander, and it was readily correctible," Aunt Seven pointed out even as Miral felt her stomach flip some more, causing her to whimper and Seven to look up, "Miral? What is wrong?"

"Her stomach's qualifying for the mat set in the Olympics," she heard Xander say blandly as she heard him stand up and walk over. Miral felt Xander pick her up and cradle her even as he walked over to the bathroom, setting her down near the toilet, "Now, Miral, I know this isn't going to be fun, but the quicker you get this done, the quicker you'll start feeling better."

She looked up at him somewhat pitifully, but she knew he was right even as he stepped back and closed the door, allowing her to retch in peace.

Xander grimaced at the sounds coming through the door – he knew that Miral hated doing this and didn't like anyone watching her (he still had the scratches from earlier that evening when he'd tried to help), but what else was he supposed to do with a very independent almost-2 year old?

"I take it you've learned about trying to help her," Seven said in a somewhat amused voice as he turned around again. "If it does make you feel better, she almost blacked Harry's eye one time he tried to help her stand on her own."

Xander winced, "It disturbs me that she's not even two and she's already this violent."

Seven just shrugged, "From what B'elana tells me, Klingon children are very independent from any but their mothers until they are about 4, and then they accept no help from anyone – I fear for Tom at times like this."

"But she's only one-quarter Klingon, Seven; shouldn't this independent streak be somewhat … less pronounced?"

Seven just shrugged at him as the toilet flushed and Xander opened the door to pick Miral up to the sink, "You would think so, yes, but it is not."

He washed Miral's mouth out and then carried the little girl to his bed, tucking her under the covers and giving her that god-awful Flauter before kissing her on the forehead, "Go to sleep, munchkin." She nodded at him and he stepped away towards Seven, who had a mysterious look on her face, "What?"

"You are surprisingly good with children, Xander, and that bodes well for you as a father, one day."

He rolled his eyes, "In the old days of Earth, there was a saying – may your children be as bad as you were. If that's the case, I'm never having kids, ever, Seven – I was an unholy terror."

Seven looked at Miral and then stepped in closer, speaking very softly, "Do you mean as yourself, or as a pre-Q human?"

He gave her a look but said nothing – ever since that Seven had pinned him about his pre-Q days, from when he wasn't exactly himself a few months before, she had been curious about who he had been, what he had done and just how much he had changed. He'd left out the majority of what he had done in respect to demons, replacing them instead with 'criminals the law couldn't touch', but the regular stuff he'd told her and she always had a few questions for him about this, that or the other as far as his Earth was concerned and it's past. Finally, though, he nodded, "Both, actually."

She just arched an eyebrow at him, "Both? Surely you were not that bad as a child."

He grinned slightly, "Well, not at first – when dad started to drink, though …" His mind went back to when he was a teen and the beatings he took from his father in order to save his mother, and then the night those beatings stopped, "It went on for nearly four years, until one night I got tired of putting up with him."

Seven's face closed up almost instantly, "You … were abused? And what do you mean … you got tired of putting up with him?"

He shook his head, "I didn't kill him, Seven, if that's what you're worried about – trust me, if I wanted to do that, he generally made it easier than it needed to be with as often as he drank himself under the table. No, I just made sure he understood that I wasn't going to let him hit me or mom ever again … without consequences." He remembered that night, when he'd introduced Tony to just how well he was capable of using a knife, and how good his aim was when throwing it, and he grinned a death's head grin at the way Tony had sobered up VERY quickly, "He never laid a hand on me or mom ever again."

Seven looked at him and then up at Miral, but then looked back at him, "You are scared to have children, then. You … do not wish to continue your own father's mistakes."

Xander blinked at her several times before shaking his head, "Seven, you're too smart and insightful for any mere mortal."

She cocked an eyebrow at him before stepping back and going to the bathroom, where she began to put her hair back up, "Alexander, there is nothing MERE about me."

He nodded, "You're right, and Harry knows that, too – he was just worried about losing you, hence the question." He walked over to the door and saw that Seven was frozen in mid-pin of her hair, her eyes blinking rapidly as tears began to well in them, so he stepped in and did what he did best with females who were about to cry – comfort, "Seven, take it from a guy who is currently a Q, 24, was almost married and has seen more shit in his life than anyone needs to see in four of them – he loves you and he wants to make sure that he's not going to lose you."

She leaned back into his hug slightly and then nodded, pulling away and wiping her face, "I understand now, Xander, thank you."

He nodded and stepped out of the bathroom, going back into the room proper and noticing that Miral as stirring slightly and looking at him sleepily, her Flauter doll on the ground, so he picked it up and gave it to her, "Here ya go, Miral."

Miral looked at him and frowned, saying one word that chilled him to the core, "Q."

Naturally, it was that point that his door chimed and B'elana's voice came in, "Xander? I'm here to pick up Miral."

(Week 32 – post finals)

It had been one very long month since Miral had spoke that one word, that one syllable, that one simple name that had scared him to no end, and since then Xander had felt as if he were on pins and needles whenever she was in the same room as him – she didn't treat him any different than she did before, never looked at him any different, hell, half of the time it was like it had never happened, but the point of fact was that she had heard what he had said, and Xander, for the first time, was scared … and that fear was well-founded. He wasn't going to be a lab rat for anyone, he wasn't going to be tested, poked, prodded and examined, let alone put under lock and key, and if needs be, he had told his father that he would raze Starfleet Academy to the GROUND, but he'd never be a lab rat.

His father, with a roll of his eyes, had promptly told him to stop taking tips from Buffy Summers on how to be overly dramatic, that the Q Continuum would never allow it to happen.

Since then, Xander had been on over-drive to get his classes in order and to get ready for finals, as he was going to be going off to some deep space station to learn all sorts of the tricks of the trade from one of the best in the business, by B'elana's own admission, and for the first time in a few weeks, he wasn't alone – B'eth and Wendy were both talking to him again and things were actually working out now. Neither of them were happy about his secrets being secret, but all three had come to the agreement to start over, fresh, and to let the chips fall where they might, and so far it was working – Wendy was well on her way to being an accomplished doctor of medicine, B'eth's piloting skills, while still rough, were starting to shape up (though she still insisted on taking Wendy on holodeck rides, rides that Wendy flatly refused to go on), and he was out of power distribution and simple repair and going on to installation and replacement of the small fusion generators that were scattered through out the ship in emergency shelter areas, ones that could keep, in an old Galaxy-class starship, alive for up to 36 hours without support, for when main power was lost and they were in an Emergency situation. It wasn't easy, but that was the point – B'elana and Seven were both pushing him to a point that was meant to break a normal human, but even before his parentage was made apparent to him, he wasn't normal, and now he was thriving on the pressure he felt to succeed, and every time he failed, he came back at it twice as hard and didn't fail again.

Now, though, he was packing his things and getting ready to his shuttle transport, and that's when he felt his family flash into the room, "Hey, guys – what're ya here fer?"

Q2 snorted at him, "Brother, do you really think we are going to let you languish in this plane of mediocrity to learn what these humans call … technology?"

"Certainly not," his father went on even as Q-F went about zapping his clothes and such into his duffle, "we're here to make sure you get the full benefit of this time off. You see, son, you are going to defy logic and a physical rule of thumb – you are going to be in two places at once."

He blinked even as Q-F finished his packing and smiled at him, "You see, Alexander, while your human half is off learning at this deep space station, your Q half is going to be with us, learning what you could term as the more … esoteric ways to use warp field theory and transporter technology, and SO much more. First, though, you need to hold still," she told him even as all three raised their fingers and snapped as one, the flash blinding him slightly.

When his vision cleared, though, he was more than a little shocked to see his double, dressed the same way as he was, standing next to him – they both sighed and spoke as one, "Oh, gods, not again."

"He is you, son," his father went on even s Q2 snickered, "and he has all of your knowledge … and human limitations. You have been granted your Q powers on a temporary basis, and when your vacation is over, you will be merged together and all that he's experienced and learned, so shall you and visa versa."

His double looked at him, "Well, at least Ahn's not here – remember what she said last time?"

Xander shuddered, "Please, I've been trying to repress the memories of her descriptions of a threesome with two of me and one of her."

His double nodded, "At least she would have died happy, though … well, as happy as she could be that doesn't involve a pile of money and a bunch of dead rabbits."

Before they could go much further, though, Q-F coughed even as Q2 gagged slightly, "Sons? A moment, please? You," she said to his double, "have a flight to catch, and we," she said to him, taking his hand, "have much to catch up on – you are WOEFULLY behind on your studies."

His double looked at him and then nodded, "Have fun, bro."

Xander nodded, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, bro."

His double snorted, "Oh, yeah, that's really limiting, isn't it!" With that, he grabbed his duffle and walked out of the door, leaving him alone with his family as Q2 collapsed to the ground.

"Great Creator, there's TWO of them!" He was promptly ignored as his father came over and draped his arm over his shoulder.

"Son, now, let's start off with a rather charming race that once were quite interesting, before their interactions with humans – they were spawned by the Xel' Naga, and were known as the Protoss …" his father said as they all flashed away into the depths of the multiverse, with much to learn and even more to visit. Time, after all, wasn't limitless, only … stretchable.

AN: Alright, here's the last of this chapter, boys and girls – I don't plan on letting it slip as long as it did last time, but it may be a while before I get back to it (only reason it took me this long was because I re-wrote this chapter five times before I decided to go with it). Please, review and tell me what you think, AR.


	4. Chapter 5

5/?

AN: alright, I'm sick and tired of rewriting this damned story. I've tried a dozen times already and, truth be told, I'm about to go bald from ripping my hair out over it, so screw it. I'm going to finish this story as-is, though, and I apologize for the previous chapters. I've gone back and read them and, well, the sooner I'm done, the better.

(Starfleet Dorm room)

"You know, there has to be a better way to do this," Xander muttered to himself as he went over yet another PADD of information for his classes. He was swamped, to be honest, but on top of all of his schooling, his father was pressing him to learn more and more about what it was to be Q, but how could he learn to be a Q if he was STUCK in a mortal body?

Xander didn't jump when he heard his step-mother's voice from behind him, "There IS a better way to go about this learning process, Q, but your father seems to think that your doing things the hard way will build character." The beautiful omnipotent being walked over and conjured a divan to lie on, looking at him in the eyes when he looked over, "I cannot, however, tell you what it is – you have to do that yourself."

Xander dropped the PADD he was holding and looked at her, "Alright, correct me if I'm wrong, but as Q, we are multi-dimensional beings, yes? I mean, it's been proven already because I've literally been in two places at once."

Q-f nodded her head, "Yes, go on. Expand from the confines of the primitive way of thinking you were brought up with, Q. It honestly isn't that difficult."

Ignoring the jab and taking his cue from the female Q, Xander stood and started pacing in his shared dorm room, "Alright, then. If I can be in two places at once, why can't I be in more places at once? Learn more at one time, get this the HELL over with? Honestly, it's starting to annoy me."

Q-f cocked her eyebrow slightly, "Being so three-dimensional? So limited?"

Xander again ignored the arrogant tone, "It has its limits, yes, but think of how far these humans have come, mother. Sure, it's a royal pain in the ass at times, but being human does have a few perks."

Q-f snorted, "I don't see how being human could beget anything that you would call a 'perk'." She stood and the divan vanished, "Either way, continue with your line of thought."

"Alright, another question – how many dimensions can we be in at the same time?"

Q-f looked at him oddly for a moment before she shook her head, "Not THAT many, Q, and before you start trying to work your mind around how to bend those rules, think of when you were split into two and how hard it was for you to concentrate at time. The more you split your being and mind into other dimensions, the harder it will be for you to learn and, as such, the longer it will take." She walked over and patted him on the cheek, "It was a nice try, though, son."

Xander growled and shook his head, "No, there HAS to be a way around that limitation. I mean, dad does it all the time! How else could he annoy so many people at the same time?"

"With a dramatic flair, Q," Q-f said to him with the same weary tone that was so often heard from wives with husbands who constantly tried their patience.

Xander sighed and snapped his fingers, stopping time with a flash of light, "This is annoying. Very, VERY annoying." He then stopped and looked around, frowning, "Wait a second."

Q-f looked at him, her eyes twinkling, "Yes, Q?"

"The Temporal Law of Q."

Q-f's face split into a grin, "Go on."

He looked up at her, "Time passes as quickly or as slowly as we want it, right?"

Q-f's grin grew larger, "Within reason."

"Do I have the power to do that yet?"

Q-f didn't respond this time.

Xander growled and stalked to his window, "Damn it! Alright, another plan…" His mind started going through everything he had learned since leaving Sunnydale, about being Q, about himself as a person, about the world, about the universe at large… but he kept running into the same problem: too little power. He could, were he allowed full access to his power, pull off what he intended to pull off, which was split himself into several copies and go about his merry little way, but he didn't HAVE his full power.

Q-f watched her stepson growl as he glared at the world outside, his mind obviously racing, and couldn't help but feel a bit of maternal pride in the fact that she was helping another Q come into his own. Q's problem, though, was the fact he could only think in three, occasionally four, dimensions. The answer was literally RIGHT THERE in front of him, but as he obviously couldn't see it, she couldn't tell him. Well, at least not overtly… "Q, you're thinking too hard."

He looked back at her, "Huh?"

She rolled her eyes and walked up behind him, put her hands on his shoulders and faced him back at the window, "You are thinking too hard. The answer is a simple one." She leaned over closer to his left ear and whispered, "Tell me what you see."

Xander frowned as he looked outside, step-mother behind him, and shook his head – he saw the Starfleet campus, cadets, officers, civilians, animals, elemental forces at work… and a reflection in the glass.

A reflection…

Xander blinked as he processed this. The reflection showed him with his step-mother leaning over and whispering into his OTHER ear, "What the hell…?"

Q-f smiled at herself as she pulled away, "Yes?"

"The reflection, it's wrong…"

"Go on…" Q-f urged him. He was close…

"Q have the ability to make the world whatever they want it to be," Xander muttered, remembering something that his brother had told him while in Sunnydale, something that his father had told him repeatedly while on their summer 'learning vacation' on Aiur, and something he'd practiced a great bit while he could. He turned and looked at the female Q, who was smiling, "I don't HAVE to be in two places at once, do I? Or any other amount of places."

"You don't? Why not?"

"Because it's not energy efficient," Xander mumbled, his mind going back to something his teacher, B'elana, had taught him. "Why make two fully functional warp cores when you only need one and a battery pack? I don't need to split myself into two beings, just be myself and make any number of functional, albeit it limited, clones."

Q-f smirked a bit, "Alright, on that basis, why don't you do it?"

Xander looked at her, frowned, and then narrowed his eyes, "Alright, what's the catch?"

The female cosmic being gave him an innocent look, "Catch?"

"Yeah, catch. There's always a catch."

"How cynical of you," the female Q said with an ounce of pride in her voice before shaking her head, causing her dark tresses to bounce a bit. "There is no catch, per se, but remember that a Q's powers are not only based on their power, but also on their confidence. If you think you're going to fail, then you will."

"So it's not just being arrogant, it's that we really think we are that good? So we can do all that we do?"

"Precisely. Now, go ahead and try."

"Do, or do not," Xander muttered under his breath.

Q-f frowned at him, "What?"

"There is no try," Xander finished the line, just shooting the mental scene from Star Wars at her before focusing on the splitting of body, but not necessarily mind…

Q-f snorted as the scene played out in her mind between the 'muppet' and the child, "How childish. True, but childish."

"You're giving me a headache."

"I'm hungry."

"Oh, shut up. You don't even technically have a stomach."

"Bite me, I'm still hungry."

Xander opened his eyes and looked around to see three copies of him, all in various forms of dress, standing in the room. He could feel each of them and, truthfully, they ranked barely above that of a human, a lowly little human at that, but even as they learned things, he could feel those things coming into his brain as well, "Cool."

"How very Oz-like," one of them, dressed in true Hawaiian print said with a bit of a Cordelia-like snark in his voice.

He shot that one a glare, "That was uncalled for. I think I'll send you-"

"To the Hostess factory?" The copy looked hopeful, was even trying to look innocent as well, but it wasn't flying at all.

"No, I think I'll send you to go have a look in at Sarah Kerrigan for a while." Xander snapped his fingers and the copy was gone.

Q-f arched her eyebrow at her step-son, "Was that necessary?"

"No, but he annoyed me," Xander said as he looked at the other two and smirked. He snapped his fingers and the other two copies of him first shifted into clothes (one being quite Jedi-like in appearance with off-white pants, shirt and a brown robe, while the other took up a quite medieval appearance, "Play nice, you two."

MedievalXander whined, "Why does HE get to be the Jedi?" just as Xander snapped his fingers and the pair vanished.

Q-f looked at him and smiled a bit, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"How do you feel?"

Xander frowned, feeling he'd had this conversation before, somewhere, but then shook his head, "Not bad, only a little drained. Did I pass?"

"Not hardly, but you get middle marks for effort and results," his step-mother allowed. "Now, though, let's start talking about what you could have done differently…"

Xander sighed – no rest for the wicked… or the Q, for that matter.

AN: Alright, that's it for this part. What do you think? Reviews would be appreciated.


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